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APPROPRIATE  PLANTING  FOR  A 
GARDEN  DOORWAY 

House  of  Mr.   James  C.  Breese,  at  Southampton,  Long  Island. 
McKim,   Meade  and  White,  Architects 


THE       LIVABLE      HOUSE 


Its  Qarden 

by  Ruth  D  e  a  n 
Landscape  Architect 


B 


/'<•  /  H  g     V  O  L  U   M  E      2      0  / 
the     Livable     House     Series 
edited  hx    -Ax ///<//■   Embury    11 


H 

B 


A  A. 


/E 


\E 


Moffat  Yard  <///</  Company 

f20  West  j 2nd  Street,  New   York 

M  C  M  X  V  I  I 


Copyright,  1917,  by 
MOFFAT,  YARD  &  COMPANY 

Published  May,  1917 


— 


To  M.   W. 


1  N  TROD  I'  C  TOR  V 

8/^6^""'  verv  rea^  Dut  undirected  interest  which  we  in 
i*  I  *?*  America  have  always  taken  in  the  development  of  our 
■fr^P+Tfc'V  grounds  lias  of  late  become  more  purposeful  and  (al- 
though the  word  is  much  misused)  efficient.  We  are 
beginning  to  realize  the  simple  fact  that  a  lot  of  flower  beds  does 
not  necessarily  make  a  garden,  and  we  as  a  mass  have  only  very 
lately  discovered  that  the  collection  and  planting  of  very  beauti- 
ful specimens  of  all  sorts  of  trees  may  detract  from,  rather  than 
beautify,  our  grounds.  Landscape  architecture  has,  like  all  arts, 
a  certain  scientific  side,  and  although  its  principles  are  perhaps 
not  as  fixed  and  definite  as,  let  us  say,  the  principles  of  mechani- 
cal engineering,  it,  nevertheless,  has  basic  and  fundamental  laws 
which  have  been  discovered  through  a  series  of  experiments,  and 
landscape  work  which  is  not  in  accordance  with  these  laws  will 
inevitably  fall  short  of  the  desired  result. 

We  are  far  too  likely  to  regard  the  house  and  its  grounds  as 
being  two  separate  and  unrelated  problems,  employing  one  ex- 
pert to  design  the  house  and  another  to  design  the  grounds,  and 
permitting  these  two  to  work  without  any  harmonic  purpose;  yet 
it  is  as  important  to  the  appearance  of  the  house  that  the  grounds 
be  co-ordinated  with  it,  as  it  is  to  the  place  as  a  whole  to  have  the 
house  set  naturally  upon  it.  Landscape  architecture  as  a  pro- 
fession is  still  new,  in  spite  of  the  enormous  success  which  its  first 

[vii] 


Introductory 

great  American  exponent,  Mr.  Frederick  Law  Olmstead,  achieved 
a  half  century  ago,  and  the  members  of  the  profession,  talented, 
brilliant  and  able  as  many  of  them  are,  do  not  find  the  general 
recognition  of  the  necessity  of  their  services  which  has  only  lately 
been  accorded  to  the  architectural  profession.  Some  idea  of  the 
very  great  importance  of  a  capable  landscape  architect  can  be  ob- 
tained from  the  illustrations  in  this  volume,  and  they  prove  that 
the  landscape  man  (or  woman)  is  as  much  a  necessity  in  the  small 
garden  as  in  the  large  park,  just  as  an  architect  is  as  indispensable 
to  the  design  of  a  cottage  as  he  is  to  that  of  a  theater.  Neverthe- 
less people  continue  to  exercise  their  own  judgment  in  garden- 
ing, as  they  do  in  architecture  and  in  decoration,  with  results 
which  in  this  art  do  not  as  a  whole  approach  any  more  nearly  a 
high  level  than  in  the  others.  People  with  some  knowledge  of 
flowers  and  with  native  good  taste  can  plant  a  garden  of  a  country 
place  which  will  look  well  for  a  while  or  at  certain  seasons,  but  a 
very  expert  and  technical  knowledge  of  flowers  and  shrubs  is 
needed  if  the  place  is  to  continue  to  improve  with  age.  Much  of 
the  planting  has  of  late  been  done  by  men  from  the  nurseries,  who 
look  at  the  planting  much  as  a  carpenter  does  when  he  builds  a 
house  of  good  material  without  regard  for  the  artistic  result: 
they  plant  sound,  healthv,  and  shapelv  trees  without  thinking  of 
their  future  development.  The  layman,  when  he  does  his  work 
himself,  frequently  forgets  that  the  trees  which  he  plants  as  a 
border  may  eventually  entirelv  cut  out  or  smother  shrubs  behind 
them,  though  the  latter  at  the  time  of  planting  are  the  larger. 
In  addition  many  of  us  know  little  of  the  seasons  of  flowering  or 

[viii] 


I  n  t  r  o  d  ii  c  t  o  r  y 
of  the  exact  varieties  of  bulbs  which  will  yield  most  profusely  and 
for  the  longest  time,  so  that  we  very  frequently  find  a  home-made 

garden  beautiful  in  spring,  half  blooming  in  summer,  and  bar- 
ren in  the  autumn.  It  is  to  correct  just  such  faults  as  these  that  a 
landscape  architect  is  employed,  and  in  considering  the  selection 
of  the  landscape  architect  to  write  this  volume  of  the  "Livable 
House"  series.  Miss  Dean  was  chosen  because  of  her  very  wide 
familiarity  with  the  problem  of  planting  with  regard  to  its  ulti- 
mate effect  and  her  great  success  in  work  around  small  houses,  as 
well  as  in  larger  work.  She  has  achieved  especial  success  in  the 
treatment  of  the  house  garden,  both  in  informal  and  in  formal 
ways,  and  the  admirable  manner  in  which  she  has  used  native 
shrubs  in  combination  has  tended  to  give  her  work  a  more  quiet 
and  less  exotic  character  than  that  of  many  of  the  other  members 
of  her  profession.  Added  to  this  is  the  fact  that  her  training  has 
been  under  men  who  represented  rather  extreme  differences  of 
opinion  in  regard  to  landscape  work,  so  that  she  has  been  led  to 
perceive  the  valuable  qualities  of  the  several  types  of  land- 
scape architecture  and  is  able  to  apply  to  any  particular  problem 
the  solution  which  best  fits  it.  As  training  of  this  kind  leads  an 
artist  to  a  more  generous  appreciation  of  the  whole  field  of  his 
or  her  work,  a  book  written  by  such  hands  will  deal  in  a  more 
broadminded  and  generous  way  with  all  schools  of  design,  than 
would  one  written  by  a  person  whose  training  had  been  acquired 
in  a  certain  definite  and  limited  field.  Miss  Dean  has  in  addi- 
tion the  very  valuable  faculty  of  being  able  to  think  clearly  and 
express  her  thoughts  simply,  so  that  the  results  of  her  knowledge 

[ix] 


Introductory 

are  more  easily  available  to  the  reader  than  those  of  many  pro- 
fessional people,  who,  knowing  their  business,  are  yet  unable  to 

describe  it. 

Without  attempting  to  survey  even  briefly  the  ground  covered 
in  this  volume,  the  editor  can  sincerely  say  that  his  professional 
experience  has  led  him  to  believe  very  thoroughly  in  the  princi- 
ples herein  set  forth,  and  that  he  recommends  them  most  earnestly 
to  any  one  who  is  interested  in  the  art  of  gardening. 

The  Editor. 


[x] 


Contents 


V  A  C  E 

Introductory vii 

I    The  Grounds  as  a  Whole       .     .     .     .      i 

Position  of  the  house  with  respect  to  exposure,  drainage, 
accessibility  from  street,  and  possible  garden  site.  Forms 
and  kinds  of  drives.  Grading  on  approximately  level 
ground  and  on  irregular  ground.  Terraces,  retaining  zeal  Is 
and  steps. 

II    General  Planting       5 l 

Foundation  planting;  purpose  of,  appropriate  and  inap- 
propriate sorts.  Border  planting;  woodland  and  garden- 
esque.  Planting  along  drives  and  walks.  Screen  planting. 
Specimen  planting.      Miscellaneous  flower  planting. 

III  The  Flower  Garden 83 

The  "Planned"  or,  informally,  formal  garden;  its  loca- 
tion, design,  arrangement  of  flowers,  etc.      Naturalistic  and 

informal  gardens.      Location,  design,    materials. 

IV  Times  and  Seasons 1 23 

Spring  planting;  trees,  shrubs,  flowers,  bulbs.  Tall  plant- 
ing.     Pruning. 

V    Garden  Architecture 133 

Gates,  walls,  pergolas,  garden  houses,  wall  fountains, 
figures,  seats,  sun  dials,  etc. 


[3d] 


The  Illustrations 


APPROPRIATE  PLANTING  FOR  A  GARDEN 

DOORWAY Frontispiece 

House  of  Mr.  James  C.  Breese,  at  Southampton,  Long  Island.      McKim, 
Meade  and  White,  Architects 

PAGE 

A     HOUSE     WHOSE     LIVING     ROOMS     OPEN     ON 

A     FLOWER     GARDEN        3 

Housi    of  Mr.  G.  W.  Curtis,  at  Southampton,  Long  Island 

A     GARDEN     WITH     A     FOREST     FOR     BOUNDARY      g 
Grounds  of  Mr.  Jonathan  Godfrey,  at  Bridgeport,  Connecticut.     F. 
Burrall  Hoffman,  Architect;  Marian  C.  Coffin,  Landscape  Architect 

A     WALL     WHICH     CONNECTS     HOUSE     WITH 
GARAGE     AND     SHUTS     OFF     THE     SERV- 
ICE    YARD     AS     WELL .       7 

House  of  Mr.  William  H.  Marland,  Brookline,  Massachusetts.     Kilham 
and  Hopkins,  Architects 

FORMAL     AND     NATURALISTIC     VERSIONS 

( )  F     T  HE     TURN-AROUND        8 

A     T  URN -A  ROUND     SIXTY     FEET     I  N 

DIAMETER 9 

Grounds  of  Mr.  E.  L.  Winthrop,  Syosset,  Long  Island.      Delano  and 
Aldrich,  Architects 

A     COMBINATION     OF     TURN-AROUND     AND 

COURT         10 

Estate  of  J.   Percy  Keating,  Esq.,  St.  Martins,  Pennsylvania.      Lay  and 
Wheelwright.  Landscape  Architects 

COURTYARD-TURN 12 

Grounds  of  Mrs.  Alexander,   Bernardsville,  New  Jersey.     Delano  and 
Aldrich.  Architects 

WALLED     COURT     T  R  E  A  T  M  E NT     OF 

ENTRANCE     DRIVE 13 

House  of  Mrs.  Alexander,  Bernardsville,  New  Jersey.      Delano  and 
Aldrich.  Architects 

THE     C  O  U  R  T     YARD     OF     AN     OLD     DUTCH 

FARM     HOUSE        15 

The  Andrew  Haring  house,  at  Northvale.  Neu   Jersey 

[xiiil 


The  lllustrat     I 


o      II 


PLAN     OF     A     FORECOURT     ON     A     SMALL 

PLACE 17 

A     PLEASING     BOX-BORDERED     FOOT-PATH    .      .      19 
House  of  Mr.  Marshall  Fry,  at  Southampton,  Long  Island.      Aymar 
Embury  II,  Architect 

AX     ANGLE     ENTRANCE     WITH     A     FLAG-STONE 

FOOT     PATH 20 

Houst  of  Mr.  L.  T.  Beale,  at  St.  Davids,  Pennsylvania.  Mellor  and 
Meigs,  Architects 

STRICTLY     FORMAL     BRICK     WALKS 21 

Garden  of  Mr.  Charles  W.  Leavitt,  Landscape  Architect 

COMFORTABLE     LOOKING     FLAG     WALKS    .  .     23 

"Brookside,"  estate  of  Mr.   William   Hall  Walker.      Ferrucio  Yitale, 
Landscape  Architect 

A     FRIENDLY     GRASS     WALK 25 

Estate  of  Mr.   Michael  Jenkins.  Roland  Park.  Baltimore.  Maryland 
Sears  and  Wendell,  Landscape  Archi/,  cts 

A     LONG     FLIGHT     OF     SHALLOW     STEPS       ...     26 
Estate  of  Mr.  Samuel  Heilner,  at  Cows,  New  York.      Ferrucio  Yitale, 
Landscape  Architect 

A     D  R I V  E     WHICH     TAKES     ADVANTAGE     OF     A 

GOOD     NATURAL     SETTING 27 

Residence  of  Mr.  J.  Brooks  Nichols,  at  Detroit,  Michigan.  Chittenden 
and  Kotting.  Architects 

A    TERRACE     OF     GOOD     WIDTH 29 

"Brookside"  estate  of  Mr.  William  Hall  Walker,  Great  Barrington, 
Massachusetts.  Carrere  and  Hastings,  Architects;  Ferrucio  Yitale, 
Landscape  Architect 

A     TERRACE     OF     GOOD     WIDTH     WITH     STEPS 

TOO     OVERGROWN  31 

House  of  Mr.  Charles  P.  Leach,  at  Ipswich,  Massachusetts.  Kilham 
and  Hopkins,  Architects 

AN     INTERESTING     SERIES     OF     DRY     WALLS        .     33 
"Huntland;"  estate  of  Mr.  J.  B.  Thomas,  Middleburg,  Virginia 
Peabody,  Wilson  and  Brown,  Architects 

A    TERRACE     WALL     AND     IRON     RAILING    .      .      .     35 
Detail  of  the  garden   of  Mr.   Charles  A.   Piatt,   Architect,  at  Cornish, 
Netc  Hampshire 

A     RETAINING    WALL     WHICH     IS     MORE 

INTERESTING    THAN     A     GRASS     SLOPE 

WOULD     BE 37 

Forest  Hills  Gardens.  Forest  Hills,  Long  Island.  Grosvenor  Atterbury, 
Architect 

[xiv] 


T    he  J     I    1     ii     s    t    r    a    t 


O        II 


APPROPRIATE     MATERIALS     FOR      Till      SIZ] 

AN  I)     CHARACTE  R 39 

"II  ili/."  garden  of  Mr.   Larz   Anderson,   Brookline,  Massachusetts 
Charles  A.   Piatt,  Architect 

A     COMBINATION     OF     MANY     MATERIALS 

WHICH     IS     NOT     UNPLEASING 4> 

Knickerbocker  Golf  Club,  Tenafly,  Neu   Jersey.     Ruth  Dean. 
Landscape  Architt  ct 

\     GOOD     DRY     WALL     WELL     PLANTED    .     ...     43 
"'I'h,  Knoll,"  estate  of  Mr.  Alvah  Crocker,  at  Fitchburg,   1/  issachusetts 
Olmsted  Brothers,  Landscape  Architects 

A     (iOOI)     FLIGHT     OF     STEPS     IN     A     RETAIN- 
ING   WALL      4- 

F'orest  Hills.  Long  Island.     Grosvenor  Atterbun,  Architect 

FOUNDATION     PLANTING     SHOULD    TIE    THE 

HO  l.M      INTO     ITS     SURROUNDINGS.     .     .     53 
lions,   of  Mrs.  George  N.  Gales,  at  Great  Neck,  Long  Island.     Aymar 
Embury  II,  Architect 

AN     INTERESTING     COMBINATION     OF 

MATERIALS .      .     55 

Garden  of  R.  B.  Ward,  Esq.,  at  New    Rochelle,  New  York.     Thomas 
W.  Sears.  Landscape  Architect 

RHODODENDRONS     ARE     BEST     COMBINED 

WITH     OTHER     KINDS     OF     PLANTS  .      .      s; 

Forest   Hills  Gardens,   Forest   Hills.   Long  Island.     Olmsted   Brothers. 
Landscape  Architi  cts 

CEDARS     USED     PROPERLY     NEAR     A     HOI  SI 

WALI 59 

IIou.u    of  Mr.   W.    E.    Seeley.    Bridgeport,    Connecticut.      Murphy   and 
Dana.  Architects 

A  N     E  X  C  E  P  T I O  N     T  ( )     T  H  E     R  U  L  E     OF     NO 
FLOWERS     ABOUT     THE     HOUSE 
FOUNDATION        «'i 

Garden  of  Mrs.  J.  Clifton  E'dgar,  at  Greenwich,  Connecticut.      Marian 
C.  Coffin.  Landscape  Architect 

PLANE     A     POND     WITH     THOSE     TREES     AND 
SHRUBS     WHICH     GROW     NATURALLY 

NEAR     WAFER 63 

"Gravetye,"    estate    of    William    Robinson.    Esq.,    at    KingSCOte,    Siiss,x. 
England.      Courtesy  of  Mr.  Thomas  W.  Sears 

THE     CORNERS     OF     FLOWER     BEDS     ARE     HERE 

REINFORCED     BY     SHRUBS 65 

Garden  of  Charles  A.  Piatt.  Architect,  at  Cornish.  New  Hampshire 

[xv] 


The  Illustrations 


PAGE 


DIAGRAM     ILLUSTRATING    PLANTING    IN 

THE     BEND     OF     A     DRIVE 66 

A     CURVING     PATH     WELL     PLANTED 67 

Garden  of  Mr.  Edward  E.  Sprague,  at  Flushing,  Long  Island.      Marian 
C.  Coffin,  Landscape  Architect 

A     TWISTED     "SPECIMEN"     TREE     RESPON- 
SIBLE    FOR     MUCH     OF     THE     CHARM     OF 

THE     FOUNTAIN 69 

Grosvenor  Atterbury,  Architect;  Olmsted  Brothers,  Landscape  Architects 

SEVERAL     SETS     OF    "SPECIMEN"     PLANTS 
ARE     USED    AGREEABLY     ON     THIS 

TERRACE 71 

House  of  Miss  R.  Hoyt,  at  Southampton,  Long  Island.      Hiss  and 
Weeks,  Architects ;  Ferrucio  Vitale,  Landscape  Architect 

SPRING     BULBS     NATURALIZED     IN     THE 

GRASS .     72 

Garden  of  Edward  E.  Sprague,  Esq.,  at  Flushing,  Long  Island.     Marian 
C.  Coffin,  Landscape  Architect 

A     PATH     WITH     PLANTS     WHICH     EMPHASIZE 

ITS     WOODLAND     CHARACTER 73 

Estate  of  Mr.  W.  B.  H.  Dowse,  at  West  Newton,  Massachusetts 
Pray,  Hubbard  and  White,  Landscape  Architects 

THE     FIRST    TWO     ARE     ADVISABLE     FORMS 

TO    WHICH     TO     SHEAR    A     HEDGE,    THE 
THIRD     INADVISABLE 74 

A     STRAIGHT     F  LO  W  E  R- B  OR  DE  R  ED     WALK       .      .     75 

Estate  of  Edward  E.  Sprague,  Esq.,  at  Flushing,  Long  Island.      Marian 
C.  Coffin,  Landscape  Architect 

A     GOOD     COMBINATION     OF     VINES     AND 

FLOWERS     AGAINST     A    WALL 77 

Garden  of  Charles  W.  Hubbard,  Esq.,  at  Auburndale,  Massachusetts 
Olmsted  Brothers,  Landscape  Architects 

A     SHADED     ALLEY    WHICH     FORMS     THE 

ENTRANCE 85 

Garden   of  Miss  Fannie  Mulford,   at  Hempstead,   Long  Island.      Ruth 
Dean,  Landscape  Architect 

AN  ANTE  ROOM  TO  THE  GARDEN 87 

House  at  Villa  Nova,  Pennsylvania.      Duhring,  Okie  and  Ziegler, 
Architects 

[xvi] 


The  III     u     s     t    r    a    t    i     o     n 


i 


AN     "ALL-OVER     PATTERN"     GARDEN— VIEW 

TAKEN     FROM     "A"     ON     PLAN 8g 

Gardtn  of  Mr.  Aymar  Embury  II.  Architect,  at  Englewood,  Nt  u  Jersey 

PLAN     OF     THE     GARDEN 90 

Of  Mr.  Aymar  Embury  II.  Architect,  Englewood,  ,\.;c  Jersey 

A    GARDEN     WELL     SURROUNDED 91 

Garden  of  Mr.  A.  II.  Stnrer.  at  Ridgefield,  Connecticut.     Lay  ami 
Wheelwright,  Landscape  Architects 

A     GARDEN     WITH     A     NATURAL     FOREST 

BACKGROUND 93 

Estate  'if  Mr.  Charles  W.  Hubbard,  at  Weston,  Massachusetts 
Olmsted  Brothers,  Landscape  Architects 

PLAN     OF    THE    GARDEN 95 

Of  Mr.  Charles  W.  Hubbard,  at  Weston.  Massachusetts.     Olmsted 
Brothers,  Landscape  Architects 

A     BOUNDARY     WHICH     LIMITS     THE     GARDEN 

WITHOUT     SHUTTING     IT     IN 97 

Estate   of  Mr.   Charles  W.   Hubbard.     Olmsted    Brothers.    Landscape 
Architects 

FLOWER     BEDS     BORDERING     A     CENTRAL 

STRETCH     OF     TURF 98 

Estate  of  Mr.   Michael  Jenkins,  at  Roland  Park.  Baltimore.  Maryland 
Sears  and   Wendell,   Landscape    Architects 

A     GARDEN     WITH     AN     OPEN     CENTER      .      .      .      .     99 
Grounds  of  Mr.  Jonathan  Godfrey,  at  Bridgeport.  Connecticut 
Marian  C.  Coffin,  Landscape  Architect:  F.  Burrall  Hoffman. 
Architect 

A     CENTRAL     GRASS     P  A  N  E  L     O  U  T E I N  E  D 

BY     BOX 101 

Garden   of  Mr.    Marshall   Fry.  at  Southampton.  Long  Island.     Aymar 
Embury  IE  Architt  •  t 

THE     EDGE     OF    A     POOL     SHOULD     NOT     BE 
ENTIRELY     SURROUNDED     BY 
PLANTING 102 

Gardtn  of  Mr.  H.   H.  Rogers,  at  Southampton.  Long  Island.      Walker 
and  Gilbert.  Architects 

WATERSIDE     PLANTS     GROWING     NEAR     A 

FORMAL     POOL [03 

Garden  of  Mrs.  Harry  Payne  Whitney,  at  Westbury.  Long  Island 
Delano  and  Aldrich.  Architects 

[xvii] 


The  Illustrat 


ions 


PAGE 


WATER     LILY     PADS     WHICH     LEAVE     A 

PLEASING     WATER     SURFACE     OPEN 

FOR     REFLECTIONS 105 

House  of  Mr.  Thomas  H.  Kerr,  at  White  Plains,  New   York.      Albro 
and  Lindeberg,  Architects 

FALLS     AT     THE     END     OF     THE     SWIMMING 

POOL 106 

Estate   of  Mr.   K.    D.   Alexander,   at   Spring   Station,    Kentucky.      Jens 
Jensen,  Landscape  Architect 

A     TERRACE     GARDEN     WITH     A     POOL 

AGAINST     THE     WALL 107 

Grounds  of  Mr.   H.   H.   Rogers,  at  Tuxedo,  New  York.      Walker  and 
Gillette,  Architects 

A     "STUDIED     HAPHAZARD"     GARDEN    .      .      .      .    109 
At  Bedford  Hills,  New  York.      Pray,   Hubbard  and  White,  Landscape 
Architects 

A     NATURALISTIC     SWIMMING     POOL        .      .      .      .110 
On  the  grounds  of  Mr.  K.  D.  Alexander,  at  Spring  Station,  Kentucky 
Jens  Jensen,  Landscape  Architect 

AN     UNUSUALLY     GOOD     PIECE     OF     ROCK 

WORK in 

Estate   of  Mr.    K.   D.   Alexander,  at   Spring  Station,   Kentucky.     Jens 
Jensen,  Landscape  Architect 

PLANS     OF     A     COUNTRY     PLACE 113 

At  Bedford  Hills,  New  York 

"THE     SPRING"     IN     A     ROCK     GARDEN      .      .      .      .114 
At  Newport,  Rhode  Island.      Pray.    Hubbard  and  White,  Landscape 
Architects 

PLANTING  CHARACTERISTIC  OF  THE 

MARSHY     STREAMS     NEAR     CHICAGO      .      .115 
Estate  of  Mr.  Harry  Rubens,  Glencoe,  Illinois.     Jens  Jensen,  Landscape 
Architect 

PLANTING     WHICH     IS     CONVINCINGLY 

NATURALISTIC i'7 

Estate  of  C.  S.  Walton,  Esc/.,  at  St.  Davids,  Pennsylvania.      Sears  and 
Wendell,  Landscape  Architects 

PLAN     FOR     THE     POOL "8 

Eitate  of  H.  Rubens,  Glencoe,  Illinois 

AN     ARCH     AS     A     FRAME     DOUBLES     THE 

INTEREST     IN     A     GARDEN 134 

Grounds  of  Mr.  H.  H.  Rogers,  at  Southampton,  Long  Island.     Walker 
and  Gillette.  Architects;  Olmsted  Brothers,  Landscape  Architects 

[will] 


The  J     I     I     it     s     t    r    a     t     i     o     n 


s 


PAGE 


A     GA  T  E  W  A  Y     W  MICH     MARKS     A  N     O  RDIXARY 

PATH     INTERESTING 136 

Forest  Hills  Gardens,  Forest  Hills,  Long  Island.     Wilson  Eyre, 
Architect 

A     PLEASING     GATE    AT    FOREST     HILLS       .     .     .   137 
Grosvenor  Atterbury,  Architect 

A    GATE    OF    ORIGINAL    DESIGN 138 

House  of  Mr.  Daniel  E.  Porneroy,  at  Englewood,  Neu  Jersey.     Aymar 
Embury  1 1.  Architect 

A     PLEASING     WALL     WITH     STUCCO     FINISH 

AND     MOLDED     BRICK     CAP        .      .      .      ...    141 

"Huntland"  Estate   of  Mr.   J.    B.   Thomas,   at   Middleburg,    /  irginia 
Peabody,  Wilson  and  Brown,  Architects 

SIMPLE     ROSE     ARCHES     OF     VERY     GOOD 

DESIGN 142 

A     GATEWAY     AND     ARBOR     AT     HAMILTON 

FARM 142 

A     WALL     PERGOLA    WITH     VALUABLE 

PLANTING    SPACE    AT     ITS     BASE    ....    143 
Garden  of  Mr.  Jonathan  Godfrey,  at  Bridgeport,  Connecticut.     Marian 
C.  Coffin,  Landscape  Architect;  F.  Burrall  Hoffman,  Architect 

A     FAUN 144 

J.  C.  Kraus,  Stonezvorker 

A     DELIGHTFUL     OLD     GARDEN     HOUSE  .      .      .      .145 
Designed  by  Samuel  Maclntire  in  fjgg  on  the  Osborn  estate  at  Peabody, 
Massachusetts 

A     USUAL     FIGURE     WHICH     IS     VERY 

PLEASING 147 

E.  Lucchesi,  Stonetvorker 

A     FINE     REPRODUCTION     OF     A     NEO- 

GRCECQUE     PHILOSOPHER 147 

J.  C.  Kraus,  Stonetvorker 

A     GOOD     TERMINAL     FIGURE     FOR     PATH.      .      .    148 

ANOTHER     TERMINAL     FIGURE     FOR     PATH    .      .    [48 

A     GARDEN     HOUSE 149 

On  the  (/rounds  of  Mr.  Charles  W.  Hubbard,  Auburndale.  Massachusetts 
Olmsted   Brothers,   Landscape  Architects 

A     FRUIT     BASKET     FOR     A     GARDEN     GATE 

POST 150 

J.  C.  Kraus,  Stoneworker 

[xix] 


The  -Illustrations 

PAGE 

DOORWAY     IN    THE    GARDEN     OF     MRS. 

ROBERT     C.     HILL 151 

At  Easthampton,  Long  Island.     Designed  by  Mrs.  Robert  C.  Hill 

A     GLIMPSE     THROUGH    THE     GATE     INTO 

"GREY     GARDENS" 152 

Easthampton,  Long  Island.     Mrs.  Robert  C.  Hill,  Landscape  Architect 

AN     UNUSUALLY     GOOD     WALL     OF     CONCRETE    153 
Garden  of  Mrs.  Robert  C.  Hill,  at  Easthampton,  Long  Island 

A     BEAUTIFULLY     DESIGNED     DOORWAY     .      .      .154 
In    the   garden    of  Mr.   C.    L.    Ring,   at   Saginaw,    Michigan.     Charles 
A.  Piatt,  Architect 

A     GOOD  GARDEN  ENTRANCE 155 

On  the  grounds  of  Mr.  Jonathan  Godfrey,  at  Bridgeport,  Connecticut 
F.  Burrall  Hoffman,  Architect;  Marian  C.  Coffin,  Landscape 
Architect 

STONE     COIGNS     AND     CAP     FORM     A    GOOD 
CONTRAST    TO    THE     PLAIN     SURFACE 

OF     THE     WALL 156 

Grounds  of  Mr.  Bronson  Winthrop,  at  Syosset,  Long  Island.     Delano 
and  Aldrich,  Architects 

A    PERGOLA    GATE    OF     INTERESTING 

MATERIALS    AND     DESIGN 157 

Garden  of  C.  S.  Walton,  Esq.,  at  St.  Davids,  Pennsylvania.     Sears  and 
Wendell,  Landscape  Architects 

A     WALL     OF     REFINED     DESIGN 158 

Garden  of  Mrs.  E.  S.  Clark,  Pomfret,  Connecticut.      Charles  A.  Piatt, 
Architect 

A    GATE     POST    OF     SIMPLE     DIGNIFIED 

DESIGN 159 

Estate  of  Mr.  Willard  Straight,  at  Westbury,  Long  Island 
A.  F.  Brinckerhoff,  Landscape  Architect 

A    CLEVER  TRELLIS  TREATMENT  OF  A 

HIGH  WALL       •   ■   •   •   •   .160 

//;  the  garden  of  Mr.  Charles  Biddle,  at  Andalusia,  Pennsylvania 
Mellor  and  Meigs,  Architects 

AN     UNUSUALLY     GOOD     BIT     OF     "RUSTIC 

WORK" .161 

Garden  of  Mrs.  J.  Clifton  Edgar,  at  Greenwich,  Connecticut.      Marian 
C.  Coffin,  Landscape  Architect 

A     FENCE     OF     CHESTNUT     PALINGS     BETWEEN 

KRICK     PIERS 162 

Garden  of  Mrs.  Harry  Payne  Whitney,  Westbury,  Long  Island 
Delano  and  Aldrich,  Architects 

[xx] 


The  Illustration     s 

PACE 

THE    WHITE     PICKET     FENCE     OF     A 

DOOR-YARD     GARDEN 163 

House  of  Mrs.  Harrison  Sanford,  at  Litchfield,  Connecticut.     Restored 
by  Aymar  Embury  II.  Architect 

SUCCESSFUL     USE     OF     A     FREE-STANDING 

WALL 164 

In  the  grounds  of  Mr.  Mortimer  L.  Scruff,  at  Oyster  Bay,  Long  Island 
James  L.  Greenleaf.  Landscape  Architect 

ARBOR     IN     THE     CENTRE     OF     A     CURVED 

TRELLIS 165 

Garden   of  Miss   Fannie   Multord,  at    Hempstead.    Lorn/   Island.      Ruth 
Dean.  Landscape  Architect 

AN     OLD     DUTCH     GARDEN 166 

On  the  Paramus  Road  near  Hohokus,  AY;;   Jersey 

GAZEBO     OF    THE     ROYAL  L     HOUSE 167 

At  Medford,  Massachusetts 

AN     AMUSING     WALL     FOUNTAIN        .      .      .      .      .      .    168 

At  "Brooksidt ."  Estati  of  Mr.  William  Hall  Walker.  Great  Barrington, 

Massachusetts.      Ferrucio  Yitale,  Landscape  Architect 

A     WALL     FOUNTAIN     COMBINED     WITH     A 

POOL 169 

Garden  of  Mr.  H.  H.  Rogers,  at  Tuxedo.  New  York.     Walker  and 
Gillette.  Architects 

A     GARDEN     ENTRANCE     FOR     WHOSE     CHARM 

AGE     IS     RESPONSIBLE 170 

House  at  So  Federal  Street.  Salem,  Massachusetts.      Samuel   Mclntyre. 
Architect.    1782 

A     DO  YE     COT  171 

In  the  Garden  of  Mrs.   Robert  C.   Hill,   at  Easthampton,  Long  Island 

A  WROUGHT  IRON  LANTERN  AND 

BRACKET    ■  .   .   .172 

At  Forest  Hills  Gardens.  Forest  Hills,  Long  Island.     Grosvenor 
Atterbury.  Designer 

TWO     BENCHES     OF     INTERESTING     DESIGN- 
BACKED     UP     BY     TRELLIS 173 

Ralph  Adams  Cram.  Architect 

A     REPRODUCTION     OF     AN     OLD     RENAIS- 
SANCE    URN       174 

At   Hamilton   Farm,   Gladstone,   Neu    Jersey.      Ruth    Dean.    Landscape 
Architect;  J.  C.  Kraus.  Stoneworker 


[xxi] 


Th  e   G  r  o  ii  n  d  s  a  s  a    Wh  o  I  c 


THE         LIVABLE         HOUSE 


Its  Garden 

C  H  A  P  T  E  R    C)  N  E 
The  Grounds  as  a   Whole 

®2~$--?L®  NGLISH  people  have  a   pleasant  way  of  referring  to 

*{    T^    T  j      >,  ■ 

•$•    H     4"    tne  entire  grounds  about  a  house  as  "the  garden,     m- 

@m"$"£®  eluding  in  the  term  not  only  the  portions  actually 
given  over  to  flowers  and  vegetables,  of  which  we  are 
accustomed  to  think  as  "garden,"  but  lawns  and  brooks  and  al- 
most any  area  which  cannot  be  dignified  by  such  a  term  as  "park," 
"wood,"  "meadow,"  or  "vineyard";  and  by  making  the  word 
plural  and  speaking  of  "the  gardens"  they  are  able  to  include 
these  as  well.  It  is  a  very  pleasing  use  of  the  word;  if  one  has 
only  a  back  vard  containing  a  few  shrubs  and  a  flower  border,  one 
likes  to  think  of  it  as  something  more  than  a  back  yard,  and  to 
dignify  it  bv  the  title  of  garden  is  to  lift  it  at  once  out  of  the  com- 
pany of  clothes  poles  and  garbage  receptacles  and  turn  it  into  an 
attractive  and  inviting  spot. 

The  term  "garden"  for  purposes  ot  this  book  is  going  to  adopt 
the  attributes  of  its  English  cousins,  and  include  everything  be- 
tween the  doorstep  and  the  property  line. 

[i] 


The         Livable         Ho     u     s     e 

The  relation  of  the  doorstep  to  the  property  line,  however,  is 
dependent  upon  the  location  of  the  house,  the  choice  of  which  five 
important  factors  should  influence.  These  are — exposure  to  sun 
and  breezes;  second,  drainage,  natural  and  artificial;  third,  ac- 
cessibility from  the  street;  fourth,  the  amount  of  grading  neces- 
sitated; and  fifth,  a  possible  garden  site.  These  factors  have  to 
be  weighed  with  one  another  and  sometimes  the  less  important 
sacrificed  for  the  more — but  their  consideration  emphasizes  one 
point  greatly  to  be  desired,  that  of  planning  the  house  with  refer- 
ence to  the  type  of  land  on  which  it  is  to  be  built,  or  putting  it  in 
reverse  order,  the  choice  of  a  piece  of  property  which  will  suit 
the  style  of  house  one  has  decided  to  build. 

Formal  symmetrical  houses  should  not  be  built  where  they  cling 
precariously  to  steep  hillsides  or  sit  uneasily  on  inadequate  and 
specially  created  plateaux;  an  informal,  picturesque  style  of  archi- 
tecture can  be  fitted  comfortably  into  the  uneven  surfaces  of  hill- 
sides; the  classic  house  with  its  regular  lines  and  balanced  plan 
should  find  a  site  on  a  level  or  gently  rolling  sweep  of  ground. 
The  important  point  is  that  house  and  land  be  considered  together. 

But  whatever  the  kind  of  house,  and  whether  or  not  it  suit  its 
particular  piece  of  property,  it  is  only  sensible  to  place  it  so  that 
the  main  living  rooms  catch  the  greatest  amount  of  sunlight  and 
summer  breezes,  and  avoid  dour  shade  and  winter  winds.  The 
latter  consideration  works  out  almost  automatically,  because  sum- 
mer winds  are  usually  south  winds,  and  those  of  winter,  north;  so 
that  the  house  which  benefits  by  summer  breezes  thereby  turns 
its  back  to  the  north.     Moreover,  the  question  of  sunlight  does  not 

[a] 


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[3] 


The         Livable         House 

conflict  with  this  consideration  because,  generally  speaking,  the 
south  and  east  offer  the  greatest  amount  of  desirable  light.  It  fol- 
lows that  a  house  on  the  south  or  west  side  of  a  street  would  have 
to  face  toward  the  rear  or  side  of  its  lot  in  order  to  capture  a 
maximum  of  light  and  air;  but  this  is  not  the  heretic  suggestion 
it  would  have  been  considered  in  the  days  when  back  doors  were 
unfeignedly  back  doors  and,  as  such,  neglected  to  the  point  of 
ugliness.  Nowadays  a  service  court,  walled  or  hedged  round 
about,  has  its  own  charm,  and  is  very  often  on  the  street  side  of 
the  house  in  order  to  leave  the  living  rooms  free  to  face  a  fine 
view  or  a  flower  garden.  Which  moves  the  fifth  point, — the  pos- 
sible garden  site,  up  to  second  place,  and  I  am  not  sure  but  that 
it  deserves  an  earlier  consideration  than  my  efforts  to  treat  it  im- 
partially first  accorded  it. 

Generally  speaking,  a  southern  or  southwestern  exposure  is  best 
for  the  flower  garden — and,  if  the  house  has  been  wisely  planned 
and  placed,  one  or  more  of  the  main  rooms  will  give  on  such  an 
exposure,  so  as  to  make  the  garden  enjoyable  immediately  from 
the  house. 

No  garden  should  be  built  where  it  will  come  in  the  way  of  a 
distant  view,  but  should  lie  rather  where  it  may  be  walled  round 
by  the  house  and  some  natural  boundary,  such  as  a  wood  or  a  hill; 
seen  in  connection  with  any  great  distance  the  garden  grows  in- 
significant; it  must  be  treated  as  an  outdoor  room,  with  outdoor 
walls  to  give  it  scale  and  importance,  and  that  close,  intimate 
feeling  which  is  part  of  a  garden's  charm.;  House  and  garden 
ought  to  be  considered  simultaneously,  and  such  a  position  on  the 

[4] 


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11 


[5] 


The         Livable         House 

property  chosen  as  will  accommodate  not  only  the  building  itself 
but  the  garden  as  well,  in  order  that  the  two  may  be  treated  as  a 
unit  and  the  garden  continue  the  lines  of  the  house. 

Preferably  it  should  continue  them  away  from  the  road  or  en- 
trance side  of  the  house  in  order  to  catch  something  of  the  remote 
feeling  which  belongs  to  woods  and  fields,  and  will  not  co-exist 
with  automobiles  and  delivery  wagons.  These  necessities  should 
be  provided  for  in  such  a  way  as  to  leave  one  side  of  the  house  free 
for  garden,  and  as  much  of  the  grounds  as  possible  unbroken  by 
road  ;  which  means  that  forethought  must  be  brought  to  bear  when 
the  house  is  being  planned  and  such  details  settled  as  the  position 
of  the  furnace,  so  that  the  finished  house  will  not  be  discovered 
with  a  coal  window  accessible  only  through  the  flower  garden,  or 
a  garage  occupying  the  best  possible  outlook  from  the  living-room 
windows.  Nine  times  out  of  ten  on  a  place  too  small  to  provide 
room  for  tucking  the  garage  and  outbuildings  away  out  of  sight 
from  the  house,  these  buildings  will  group  advantageouslv  near 
the  kitchen  wing,  even  form  a  part  of  the  same  structure  bv  the 
use  of  such  connecting  features  as  grape  arbors  or  trellis  or  the 
much-misused  pergola.  An  arrangement  by  which  the  service 
portions  of  a  place  are  kept  together  automaticallv  guarantees 
one  or  more  sides  of  the  house  open  for  lawn  or  garden,  or  both, 
and  makes  for  convenience  as  well. 

But  with  the  wisdom  of  this  plan  admitted,  it  is  often  no  easy 
thing  to  so  place  the  group  on  the  ground  as  to  make  it  accessible 
from  the  street  with  any  beauty  or  dignity  of  approach,  not  to 
mention  ease  and  convenience. 

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Sifted    down    to    first   principles, '' there    are    but    three    forms 
which  an  entrance  drive  may  take.     First,  the  drive  which  ends 


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FORMAL     AND     N  A  T  U 
RALISTIC    VERSIONS 
OF    THE    TURN- 
AROUND 


in  a  turn-around;  second,  the  horseshoe  or  U-shaped  drive;  and 
third,  the  drive  which  terminates  in  a  yard  or  court.  J 

The  first  admits  of  more  variation  and  amplification  than  the 
others,  and  is  probably  most  often  used.  Formal  and  naturalistic 
versions  of  this  kind  of  drive  are  shown  side  by  side  on  this  page. 

[8] 


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House 


JT-  MAJITJAJ  Z.AS/Z' 


\    COMBINATION  OF  TURN  AROUND 
AND  COURT 

Estate  of  J.   Percy  Keating,  Esq.,  St.   Martins,  Pennsylvania. 
Lay  and  Wheelwright,  Landscape  Architects 


[10] 


Its  G         a         r         d         c        n 

The  formal  plan  needs  a  great  deal  of  space  in  order  to  make 
it  effective,  for  the  dignity  of  any  vista  depends  largely  upon 
its  Length,  and  such  a  scheme  as  this  should  not  be  attempted  in 
connection  with  any  hut  a  formal  house,  with  almost  unlimited 
space  in  front  of  it.  The  freer  sort  of  turn-around  is  more  adapt- 
able and  can  he  managed  in  less  room,  for  it  is  possible  to  so  plant 
such  a  drive  as  to  disguise  its  limits.  But  it  is  not  possible  to 
reduce  these  limits  to  a  circle  of  less  than  sixty  feet  outside  diam- 
eter, unless  the  entire  turn-around  be  given  over  to  gravel ;  eighty 
feet  is  a  more  comfortable  minimum. 

Mr.  Keating's  place  at  St.  Martins  illustrates  a  clever  scheme 
for  a  drive  on  a  small  place.  It  is  a  combination  of  turn-around 
and  court, — and  occupies  what  under  ordinary  circumstances 
would  be  the  entire  front  yard.  The  space  inside  the  wall  is 
95x65  feet,  and  the  drive  is  15  feet  wide.  A  straight  service 
drive  leads  to  the  garage  at  the  rear  of  the  property,  and  it  is 
worth  noting  in  connection  with  this  plan  that  the  garage  is  off 
centre  with  the  drive,  so  that  from  the  street  one  may  not  look 
straight  down  the  drive  into  the  yawning  doors  of  the  garage. 
Curving  the  drive  a  little,  so  as  to  plant  out  the  direct  line  of 
vision,  accomplishes  the  same  result,  but  requires  more  space  than 
is  available  between  property  line  and  house,  on  this  plan. 

The  plan  and  photograph  of  Mrs.  Alexander's  place  at  Ber- 
nardsville,  illustrates  much  the  same  sort  of  entrance  arrangement 
on  a  larger  scale. 

A  turn  which  takes  the  form  of  an  ellipse,  or  some  variant  of 
an  ellipse,  is  more  agreeable  than  the  simple,  obvious  circle.     The 

["] 


The         L     l     v     a     b     I 


House 


COURTYARD-TURN 

Grounds  of  Mrs.  Alexander,  Bernardsville,  New  Jersey 
Delano  and  Aldrich,  Architects 


[12] 


/      / 


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d 


n 


[13] 


The         Livable         Ho     u     s     e 

latter,  because  of  its  regularity  of  outline,  is  difficult  to  plant  in- 
terestingly, and  is  apt  to  be  left,  except  for  a  tree  or  bush  in  the 
centre,  totally  unplanted,  with  the  whole  turn  barrenly  visible. 
But  like  the  failure  of  the  book,  whose  end  is  readable  from  the 
beginning,  to  invite  us  beyond  the  first  chapter,  and  the  picture 
whose  beauties  are  all  apparent  in  a  flash  to  hold  our  attention, 
the  turn-around  which  is  to  be  seen  in  its  entirety  lacks  the  charm 
which  goes  along  with  mystery;  the  well-designed  road,  on  the 
other  hand,  does  not  reveal  at  once  all  that  lies  ahead,  but  con- 
trives by  a  combination  of  form  and  grading  and  planting  to  lead 
up  to  the  house  in  an  inviting  way.  Even  when  the  road  is 
squeezed  into  the  smallest  possible  compass,  and  there  is  no  longer 
room  left  in  which  to  imagine  anything  but  how  to  get  the  auto- 
mobile around  in  the  least  damaging  way,  a  few  shrubs  and  a 
tree  or  two  are  desirable,  just  for  the  sake  of  ornament.  They 
may  not  create  an  illusion  as  to  what  lies  ahead,  but  they  take 
away  an  otherwise  barren  look  and  increase  the  apparent  size  of 
the  turn  by  concealing  somewhat  its  limitations. 

1  The  "horseshoe"  or  U-shaped  drive  is  a  useful  subterfuge  which 
offers  an  infallible  wav  out  of  the  difficulty  of  a  drive  in  a  shallow 
yard,  i  It  delivers  one  neatly  at  the  front  door  and  presents  no 
disconcerting  sharp  turns  or  awkward  necessities  for  backing,  such 
as  the  cramped  turn-around  is  apt  to  abound  in.  Its  very  obvious- 
ness is  probably  the  chief  argument  to  be  used  against  it;  this,  and 
the  fact  that  it  necessitates  two  entrances.  Like  the  circular  turn, 
it  is  more  often  than  not  uninterestingly  regular  in  outline,  with 
its  end  too  apparent  from  the  beginning,  though  this  latter  objec- 

[14] 


/      / 


G        a 


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15 


The  Livable  House 

tion  can  be  met  by  skillful  planting  and  grading.  If  the  road 
surface  be  sunk  slightly  below  the  surrounding  lawn,  or,  to  put 
it  another  way,  if  the  lawn  be  crowned  toward  the  centre,  the  ex- 
tent of  the  road  will  be  minimized,  and  one  side  made  almost,  if 
not  quite,  invisible  from  the  other.  This,  with  planting  in  one 
or  both  of  the  curves,  will  reduce  the  effect  of  a  drive  which  leads 
into  a  place  only  to  lead  out  again. 

The  third  sort  of  road,  that  which  ends  in  a  yard  or  court,  goes 
about  solving  the  drive  difficulty  in  a  different  way  from  either 
of  the  other  two.  Instead  of  trying  to  minimize  the  extent  of 
road  necessary  by  a  stretch  of  green  in  the  centre,  it  sets  aside  a 
certain  space  for  turning,  surfaces  it  all  over  like  the  drive,  and 
then  walls  it  in,  or  fences  it  off,  or  plants  it  out.  On  a  big  place 
such  a  drive  oftenest  takes  the  form  of  a  forecourt,  and  pre- 
supposes a  more  or  less  formal  arrangement  of  buildings.  On  a 
small  place  a  forecourt  is  seldom  used,  for  the  reason  that  it 
means  sacrificing  too  much  space  in  front  of  the  house.  But  there 
is  no  reason  why  such  a  scheme  could  not  be  made  verv  delightful, 
given  a  tvpe  of  house  adaptable  to  this  treatment;  a  house  which 
would  take  kindly  to  walls  and  fences  and  a  paved  English  court. 
I  am  free  to  admit  that  I  have  never  seen  such  a  plan  carried  out 
in  connection  with  the  small  house,  but  it  is,  I  think,  very  well 
worth  trying.  The  plan  on  page  17  illustrates  the  scheme,  and 
embodies  all  sorts  of  ideas  which  do  not  appear  on  the  sur- 
face, tall  sunflowers  and  larkspur  against  a  whitewashed  wall,  and 
a  weathered  bench  under  a  twisted  old  tree,  as  well  as  the  flag- 
stones (which  might  be  brick)  laid  in  a  pattern.     A  picture  of  one 

[16] 


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P  L  A  N    ()  F    A    F  O  R  E  COIR  T    O  N    A    SMALL 

P  L  A  C  E 

0«<"  way  of  solving  the  drive  problem 


[17] 


The  Livable  H     u     u     s     e 

of  those  story-book  English  courtyards  will  serve  to  illustrate  the 
spirit  of  the  thing. 

Regarded  from  a  strictly  utilitarian  point  of  view,  the  court- 
yard may  be  removed  to  the  side  or  back  of  the  house,  and  there 
used  as  a  combination  service  and  garage  yard  and  turn-around. 
A  car  can  back  and  turn  in  a  space  about  forty  feet  square,  which 
mav  be  planted  out  so  as  to  be  practically  invisible  from  the  house. 
This  arrangement,  with  a  drive  which  runs  alongside  the  house, 
probablv  cuts  the  grounds  up  the  least,  and  entails  the  smallest 
amount  of  drive  construction.  It  means,  however,  that  no  car 
has  an  exit  without  proceeding  to  the  yard  and  turning,  or 
else  adopting  the  somewhat  inconvenient  expedient  of  backing 
out. 

If  the  drive  happens  to  be  narrow,  the  grass  borders  and  the 
owner's  temper  suffer  correspondingly.  A  ten-foot  road,  widened 
to  twelve  or  fourteen  feet  on  the  turns,  is  enough  for  one  car  to 
proceed  comfortably.  If  the  road  be  a  long  one  this  width  is 
apt  to  look  narrow,  and  should  be  broadened  to  twelve  feet  for 
appearance's  sake.  A  twelve-foot  road,  however,  is  not  wide 
enough  for  two  cars  to  pass,  and  if  this  necessity  is  going  to  arise, 
the  drive  should  be  increased  to  fifteen  feet. 

The  commonest  material,  and  probablv  the  most  satisfactory,  for 
drive  construction  on  private  grounds  is  crushed  stone.  Where 
stone  is  very  plentiful  locally,  the  foundation  may  be  made  of 
coarse  stone  with  the  finer  lavers  on  top,  but  in  regions  where  stone 
must  be  shipped  in,  cinders  mav  be  used  as  a  base.  A  crushed 
stone  foundation  sometimes  obviates  the  necessity  of  subsurface 

[18] 


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Livable  House 


AN    ANGLE    ENTRANCE    WITH    A    FLAG 
STONE    FOOT-PATH 

House  of  Mr.   L.  T.   Beale,  at  St.   Davids,  Pennsylvania. 
Mellor  and  Meigs,  Architects 

[20] 


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STRICTLY    FORMA  L    B  RICK    W  A  LKS 
Garden  of  Mr.  Charles  W.   Leavitt,  Landscape  Architect 

[21] 


The  Livable  H     o     u     s     c 

drains,  but  in  places  where  there  is  liable  to  be  standing  water 
any  foundation  will  need  drains  of  one  sort  or  another. 

A  tile  drain  laid  under  one  gutter  will  usually  take  care  of  the 
sub-drainage  and  may  be  utilized  in  carrying  off  the  surface 
water  by  means  of  tiles  run  to  it  from  the  catch  basins.  All  drains 
should  be  laid  at  least  three  feet  six  inches  below  grade  in  the 
region  of  New  York,  in  order  to  go  down  below  the  frost  line. 

In  cases  where  the  sub-soil  is  a  very  hard  clay  which  retains 
the  water,  two  drains,  one  under  each  gutter  may  be  necessary. 
The  most  important  point  in  road  construction  is  to  have  the  sub- 
soil well  drained,  because  thorough  drainage  is  essential  to  a  good 
foundation,  j  A  sub-soil  which  holds  water  will  make  the  entire 
road  soft  and  spongy,  and  no  amount  of  top  dressing  will  be  of  per- 
manent value.  For  a  careful  and  thorough  treatise  on  road-mak- 
ing, see  Mr.  Ira  Osborn  Baker's  "Roads  and  Pavements." 

Gutters  may  be  made  of  any  one  of  a  number  of  materials 
equally  satisfactory.  Brick,  stone,  asphalt  block,  concrete,  are  all 
structurally  adaptable.  But  they  all  have  the  same  unpleasant 
quality  of  defining  the  road,  and  making  it  stand  out  from  the 
lawn.  Sod  gutters  should  be  used  whenever  possible,  or  better 
still  gutters  should  be  dispensed  with  altogether  in  places  where 
they  are  not  absolutely  necessary  to  carry  off  the  surface  drainage. 

In  the  consideration  of  approaches  to  the  house,  one  is  apt  to 
ignore  completely  the  place  of  the  footpath,  which,  in  these  days 
of  plentiful  automobiles,  has  happily  become  not  entirely  extinct. 
The  idea  of  convenience  in  rainy  weather,  which  makes  all  of  us 
who  have  once  suffered  a  drenching  of  our  best  clothes  unwilling 

[22] 


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COMFORTABLE    LOOKING    FLAG    WALKS 

"Brookside,"  Estate  of  Mr.  William   Hall  Walker 
Ferrucio  Vitale,   Landscape  Architect 

[23] 


The  Livable  H 


o     u     s     e 


to  walk  to  the  doorstep,  is  one  which  might  well  be  sacrificed 
for  the  improved  appearance  of  the  grounds.  A  house  which  is 
nearer  the  road  than  seventy-five  feet  should  content  itself  with 
a  side  drive  and  a  walk. 

(  Four  feet  six  inches  is  a  minimum  width  for  such  a  walk,  be- 
cause a  narrower  path  does  not  permit  two  people  to  walk  abreast; 
nothing  so  cramps  a  place,  and  detracts  from  that  spacious  air  of 
ease  and  dignity,  which  is  one  of  its  most  desirable  attributes,  as 
narrow  walks. 

Materials  for  paths  present  a  much  wider  range  than  those  for 
drives,  and  it  is  sometimes  hard  to  choose  among  the  attractive 
array  of  bricks  and  tiles  of  various  sorts,  flags,  stone,  and  slate, 
as  well  as  the  old  standbyes,  crushed  stone  and  gravel.  I  am  pur- 
posely omitting  cement  walks  from  this  catalogue  because  of  their 
extreme  ugliness.  They  are  irretrievably  harsh  and  glaring  in 
appearance,  and  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  discover  have  no 
quality  to  recommend  them  except  their  great  convenience.  This 
under  some  circumstances,  I  am  loath  to  admit,  is  sufficient. 

Brick,  tile,  and  gravel  are  best  adapted  to  formal  use,  broken 
flags  with  the  grass  growing  between  are  essentially  informal  in 
spirit,  although  the  degree  of  formality  of  almost  any  of  these 
materials  is  affected  by  the  border  treatment  of  the  walk.  For 
instance,  no  path  with  flowers  growing  close  to  its  border  and 
bending  over  the  edge  can  be  formal,  strictly  speaking.  A  turf 
border  between  the  flowers  and  the  walk  contributes  to  its  for- 
mality, and  a  trimmed  hedge  or  coping  along  the  edge  prac- 
tically insures  it. 

'  [24] 


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[25] 


The  Li     v     a     b     I     e  Ho     u     s     e 


A    LONG    FLIGHT    OF    SHALLOW    STEP! 
Estate  of  Mr.  Samuel  Heilner,  at  Cows,  New  York.     Ferruc 
Vitale,  Landscape  Architect 

[2b] 


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A    DRIVE    WHICH    TAKES    ADVANTAGE 
OF    A    GOOD    NATURAL    S  E  T  T  I  N  G 

Residence  of  Mr.  J.   Brooks  Nichols,  at  Detroit,  Michigan. 

Chittenden  and   Rotting,  Architects 

[27] 


The  Livable  House 

It  seems  hardly  necessary  to  write  admonitions  against  the  need- 
lessly serpentine  walk.  The  path  which  winds  its  way  across 
thirty  unobstructed  feet  of  front  lawn  is  an  error  we  like  to  think 
of  as  Victorian,  for  almost  every  one  has  come  to  realize  that' a 
path,  in  order  to  curve  pleasingly,  must  have  some  excuse,  either 
natural  or  artificial,  for  curving.  The  average  dooryard  path 
performs  its  duty  best  and  is  therefore  most  attractive  in  running 
a  straightforward  course  from  gate  to  door.  The  inevitable  ex- 
ceptions to  this  rule  bring  their  own  solutions. 

The  two  points  which  remain  unconsidered  in  a  choice  of  the 
house  site — drainage  and  grading — are  more  or  less  interdepend- 
ent. When  the  question  of  good  drainage  arises  the  prospective 
house  builder  naturally  looks  about  for  a  hill  on  which  to  place 
his  house.  And  in  this  connection  a  popular  fallacy  has  grown 
up  about  the  location  of  the  house  which  is  as  firmly  adhered  to, 
as  is  the  idea  that  stripes  make  fat  people  look  thin.  If  a  piece 
of  property  offers  a  choice  of  sites,  one  of  which  is  a  hilltop,  the 
owner  invariably  chooses  the  highest  point,  telling  himself  that 
high  ground  is  healthful  and  that  low  ground  is  the  haunt  of 
mosquitoes,  dampness,  and  disease;  and  that,  moreover,  the  view 
from  his  hilltop  is  unexcelled  and  affords  a  complete  panorama 
of  the  countryside.  What  he  overlooks  in  such  a  choice  is  that 
his  view  probably  includes  all  of  his  neighbor's  houses  and  barns, 
whereas  if  he  were  just  under  the  brow  of  the  hill  he  would  escape 
these,  along  with  the  racking  winter  winds  of  the  hilltop,  and 
at  the  same  time  have  the  feeling  of  greater  space  and  breadth 
which  comes  with  privacy.     Almost  always  his  own  place  will 

[28] 


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[29] 


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The  Livable  House 

offer  no  end  of  delightful  little  views  of  its  own,  which  are  far 
more  entertaining  and  various  than  the  impersonal  and  tiring  (if 
seen  constantly)  panorama  of  the  whole  countryside.  This  view 
would  be  much  more  effective  reserved  as  an  occasional  treat  to 
be  seen  from  a  garden  house  reached  by  climbing  a  winding  path 
up  the  hill,  than  it  would  be  if  constantly  spread  out  before  one. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  economy,  a  hilltop  usually  means 
more  road  construction  and  steeper  grades  than  a  hillside,  and, 
if  one  happens  to  be  concerned  about  this  item,  more  landscape 
work.  By  the  time  the  house  has  crowned  the  hilltop  it  is  apt 
to  have  surmounted  all  of  the  trees,  and  sticks  up  bare  and  com- 
manding above  their  tops.  Down  a  little  lower  among  the  foliage 
of  the  trees,  with  the  hillside  as  a  background,  it  would  fit 
much  more  agreeably  into  its  surroundings  and  form  an  infinitely 
more  pleasing  picture  than  outlined  starkly  against  the  sky. 

Drainage  would  seem  on  the  face  of  it  to  be  taken  care  of  by 
nature  for  the  house  on  the  hill;  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  has  prob- 
lems of  its  own,  especially  if  the  hill  be  steep,  quite  as  difficult 
as  the  house  on  bottom  land  with  a  marsh  to  be  drained.  Rain 
torrents,  which  rush  down  the  road  carrying  its  surface  along, 
must  be  provided  for  by  frequent  catch  basins  and  adequate  drains. 
Lawns  are  apt  to  be  difficult  to  get  and  maintain,  complicated 
often  by  the  necessity  of  steep  terraces  or  their  costly  alternative, 
retaining  walls.  The  problem  of  too  little  water  with  which  one 
is  confronted  on  the  hilltop  is  less  easily  and  more  expensively 
solved  than  that  of  too  much,  which  dampens  one's  enthusiasm  for 
a  bottom  land  site.     Agricultural  tile  drains  are  simpler,  much 

[30] 


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11 


A  TERRACE  OF  GOOD  WIDTH  W  I T  H 
STEPS  TOO  OVERGROWN 

House  of  Mr.  Charles   P.  Leach,  at  Ipswich,  Massachusetts. 
Kilham  and  Hopkins,  Architects 

[31] 


The  Livable  House 

cheaper,  and  more  reliable,  however,  than  pumps  and  wells,  and 
raise  a  point  worth  a  second  consideration  in  the  location  of  one's 
house. 

It  is  an  axiom  that  the  general  slope  of  the  land  should  be  away 
from  the  house,  an  axiom  which  refers  to  the  land  immediately 
surrounding  the  house,  however,  rather  than  to  the  entire  grounds. 
It  might  appear,  for  example,  that  a  house  placed  twenty  feet 
from  the  foot  of  a  hill  would  be  more  or  less  inundated  after  a 
rain,  bv  surface  water  running  down  hill.  But  the  simple  ex- 
pedient of  grading  the  intervening  twenty  feet,  with  a  pitch  to- 
ward the  hill  would  prevent  such  a  disaster. 

Any  house  built  on  hard  clay  or  rock  is  apt  to  be  troubled  by 
dampness  or  actual  wetness  from  the  subsurface  water,  unless  it  is 
provided  with  a  foundation  drain.  This  is  exactly  what  its  name 
describes — a  drain  laid  around  the  foundations  of  the  house  to 
carrv  off  the  water  which  invariably  collects  where  the  soil  is  least 
dense. 

But  the  value  of  grading  is  not  confined  to  its  usefulness  in  rela- 
tion to  proper  drainage.  It  adds  to  the  beauty  of  the  grounds  or 
detracts  from  it  materially,  according  as  it  is  skillfully  or  poorly 
managed. 

On  approximately  level  ground  the  problems  of  grading  are  apt 
to  be  less  troublesome,  though  not  so  interesting  in  results  as  those 
of  a  more  uneven  site.  It  is  a  mistake  to  flatten  out  too  ruthlessly 
irregularities  in  surface,  for  more  often  than  not  a  garden  built 
on  different  levels  has  greater  charm  than  one  which  presents  an 
even  stretch  to  the  eye.     Even  a  slight  difference  in  levels  may 

[32] 


/      / 


G        a        r        d 


c         11 


[iil 


The  Livable  H     o     it     s     e 

sometimes  be  emphasized  to  good  advantage,  and  the  apparent 
drop  from  one  point  to  another  exaggerated.  Mr.  Ferrucio 
Vitale  has  accomplished  a  pleasing  deception  of  this  sort  in  the 
garden  of  Mr.  Samuel  Heilner,  where  the  actual  difference  in 
heights  is  only  three  and  one-half  feet.  By  making  shallow  risers 
and  tilting  the  tread  back  so  as  to  lose  an  inch  or  so  which  has  to  be 
regained  on  each  riser  he  has  made  the  flight  of  steps  much  longer 
than  is  necessary,  and  in  so  doing  has  created  the  illusion  of  a 
real  hill. 

In  many  ways  the  casual  observer  may  be  hoodwinked  by  such 
differences  in  levels.  A  perfectly  flat  piece  of  land  always  ap- 
pears slightly  concave,  and  needs  a  small  crown  in  order  to  make 
it  seem  flat.  Moreover,  the  effect  of  a  concave  surface  is  de- 
cidedly to  shorten  a  stretch  of  ground,  which,  on  the  other  hand, 
may  be  equally  lengthened  in  appearance  by  a  convex  grading. 
Any  artificial  variation  in  the  surface  of  land  which  is  naturally 
flat  should  be  small  or  spread  over  b;g  surfaces,  in  order  not  to 
seem  stiff  and  unnatural.  Abrupt  differences  in  levels,  when  they 
become  necessary,  may  be  softened  by  planting.  Naturalistic 
groups  of  native  shrubs  and  trees  planted  at  strategic  points,  such 
as  the  junction  of  a  level  stretch  and  the  beginning  of  a  slope  or  on 
an  awkward  rise,  will  excuse  a  grade  which,  bare  of  planting, 
would  seem  forced  and  unnatural.  Such  artificial  changes  in 
level  are  extremely  useful.  For  example,  shrubs  or  trees  planted 
with  the  idea  of  shutting  out  unpleasant  objects  will,  under  most 
circumstances,  accomplish  this  end  much  sooner  for  having  the 
head  start  offered  by  a  hill  or  mound.     Grading  the  boundary  up 


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[35] 


The  Livable  House 

along  a  street  to  be  screened  means  sinking  the  street  just  so  much 
below  the  level  of  the  eye  and  increasing  the  value  of  the  planting 
by  the  additional  height  of  the  border.  On  the  other  hand,  cut- 
ring  down  a  flat  stretch  may  disclose  a  very  pleasant  outlook,  and 
will  always  have  the  effect  of  bringing  the  object  revealed  nearer 
to  the  point  of  view. 

Getting  enough  variety  into  flat  land  is,  for  the  small  place  at 
least,  a  simpler  process  and  always  a  less  expensive  one  than  elimi- 
nating the  too  great  variance  in  a  hillside  site.  A  house  to  be 
thoroughly  pleasing  must  have  the  appearance  of  ease  and  dig- 
nity which  comes  from  fitting  comfortably  into  its  surroundings, 
and  if  it  is  designed  in  the  beginning  to  fit  the  different  levels  of 
a  hillside  it  will  demand  less  in  the  way  of  grading  at  the  end. 
It  is  not  easy  to  create  landscape;  to  move  in  a  site  to  fit  a  house 
after  it  is  built.  Any  house  is  bound  to  have  an  unpleasantly  new 
appearance  for  some  time  after  it  is  completed,  and  it  is  far 
simpler  to  place  the  house  where  old  trees  and  a  sufficiently  level 
stretch  of  land  invite  it,  than  to  import  these  afterward  to  give  it 
the  look  of  belonging  in  its  surroundings. 

Next  to  appropriateness  in  the  design  of  the  house  itself,  prob- 
ably the  most  important  factor  in  the  success  of  a  hillside  house 
is  the  terrace  or  terraces  on  which  the  house  stands.,  Some  of  the 
uncomfortable  looking  buildings  one  sees  sliding  down  hill  make 
it  seem  impossible  to  build  a  terrace  too  wide,  although,  even  if 
this  were  a  serious  danger,  the  expense  of  grading  would  usually 
prevent  such  a  circumstance.  There  is  much  to  be  said  for  the 
distressing  condition  of  the  man  on  a  rocky  hill  where  "soil  is 

[36] 


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worth  its  weight  in  gold,"  but  this  scarcity  of  materials  is  some- 
thing which  must  be  anticipated  and  the  house  designed  to  grow 
up  out  of  the  hillside,  without  the  need  of  a  wide  platform  to  give 
it  the  look  of  stability. 

A  good  general  rule  to  follow  in  determining  the  width  of 
terraces  is  to  make  them  equal  to  the  distance  from  ground  line 
to  eaves,  with  a  minimum  width  of  twelve  feet.  The  picture 
of  the  Walker  house  illustrates  an  ample  terrace  and  the  effect 
which  it  gives  the  house  of  spacious  dignity.  An  architectual 
treatment  of  a  terrace  such  as  this  (or  one  in  a  simpler  style),  if 
it  is  well  done,  is  apt  to  be  rather  more  satisfactory  than  a  terrace 
ending  in  a  grassy  slope,  v  In  other  words,  a  retaining  wall  for 
portions  of  the  grounds  near  the  house  or  those  connected  with 
the  garden  is  more  desirable  than  a  turf  bank.:  A  grass  terrace 
is  always  somewhat  indefinite  as  to  ending  and  somewhat  difficult 
to  stop.  For  naturalistic  work,  where  the  terrace  may  be  treated 
in  an  irregular  manner  and  allowed  to  fade  away  into  the  sur- 
rounding lawn,  it  is  satisfactory  enough,  but  where  it  is  used 
architecturally  and  made  to  conform  to  a  regular  outline  it  is 
both  stupid  and  awkward  to  handle.  Further  than  this,  grass  on 
a  slope,  if  it  be  at  all  steep,  is  difficult  to  maintain  and  liable  to 
burn  out  in  midsummer. 

A  wall,  on  the  contrary,  offers  no  unpleasant  obstacles  to  main- 
tenance; it  gains  additional  space  for  the  garden  and  offers  no 
end  of  opportunities  for  interesting  treatment.  Unlike  the  vague 
terminus  which  the  grass  slope  forms,  it  provides  a  definite  point 
at  which  to  stop  the  terrace  and  an  opportunity  to  treat  its  top  with 

[38] 


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APPROPRIATE    MATERIALS    FOR    THE 
SIZE    AND    CHARACTER 

"Weld,"   Garden   of  Mr.   Larz   Anderson,    Brookline,  Massa- 
chusetts.    Charles  A.   Piatt,  Architect 

[39] 


The  Livable  House 

a  balustrade  or  railing  or  planting,  for  some  form  of  coping 
is  desirable  to  give  a  finish  to  the  terrace  and  prevent  the  "falling- 
off'  feeling  one  has  in  the  absence  of  such  a  boundary.  Unfor- 
tunately walls  are  costly  of  construction  and  must  often  for  this 
reason  be  supplanted  bv  grass  terraces.  But  wherever  It  is  pos- 
sible, walls  should  be  given  the  preference  and  welcomed  as 
opportunities  for  adding  interest  to  the  garden.  The  picture  of 
"Huntland"  would  be  stupid  indeed  if  the  series  of  dry  walls  were 
to  be  replaced  bv  grass  banks,  and  a  slope  of  turf  would  make  but 
a  poor  background  to  Mr.  Piatt's  garden  in  place  of  the  walled 
terrace  with  its  pleasing  iron  rail. 

Good  use  is  made  of  retaining  walls  in  connection  with  the 
houses  designed  bv  Mr.  Grosvenor  Atterbury  at  Forest  Hills, 
Long  Island.  Here  each  house  has  but  a  small  door-yard,  three 
or  four  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sidewalk.  Instead  of  terracing 
this  down  to  the  sidewalk — the  usual  treatment  for  such  yards — a 
wall  built  back,  a  foot  or  two  from  the  edge  of  the  walk  in  order 
to  leave  space  for  planting  at  its  base,  takes  care  of  the  difference 
in  levels,  increases  by  a  few  feet  the  size  of  the  front  yard,  and 
adds  immeasurably  to  its  attractiveness  both  inside  and  outside  the 
wall. 

A  choice  of  materials  for  the  retaining  wall  would  inevitably 
be  influenced  by  the  two  factors:  appropriateness,  both  to  the  style 
of  house  and  the  kind  of  garden,  and  availability,  which  is  bound 
up  with  the  circumstances  of  cost.  It  goes  without  saying  that 
a  wall  of  fine  cut  ashlar  work  would  be  out  of  place  in  a  small, 
unpretentious  garden,  and  that,  on  the  other  hand,  rough  field 

[40] 


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The  Livable  House 

stone  would  be  poorly  suited  to  a  formal  garden  of  the  size  and 
character  of  "Weld."  The  garden  is  tied  to  the  house  and  made 
a  part  of  it,  or  alienated  from  it  as  much  by  the  materials  used  in 
construction  work  as  by  any  other  one  factor,  and  those  of  the 
house  should  at  least  be  recalled  in  some  way  in  the  garden. 
The  retaining  wall  of  the  terrace  at  the  Knickerbocker  Country 
Club  is  a  continuation  of  the  foundation  wall  of  the  house  con- 
structed of  native  sandstone,  whitewashed;  and  the  marble  treads 
and  brick  risers  of  the  steps  are  similar  to  those  of  the  porch.  In- 
cidently,  this  offers  an  example  of  a  happy  combination  of  several 
materials. 

In  a  country  like  the  blue  stone  regions  of  Pennsylvania  or  the 
granite  hills  of  New  England,  stone  suggests  itself  as  the  natural 
material  for  walls,  although  even  where  it  is  so  plentiful  it  is  un- 
happily not  always  the  cheapest  material.  A  stretch  of  Long  Is- 
land coast  land,  on  the  other  hand,  with  sand  or  gravel  ready  to 
hand  makes  concrete  almost  imperative.  Unfortunately,  the  sur- 
face of  a  concrete  wall  is  difficult  to  treat  interestingly,  for  it  has 
a  natural  flatness  of  tone  that  is  almost  impossible  to  enliven. 
Leaving  the  surface  unfinished  with  the  marks  of  the  molds  upon 
it,  plus  a  generous  planting  of  vines  and  bushes,  constitute  the  best 
treatment  for  this  kind  of  wall.  A  very  pleasing  surface  may  be 
got  by  the  application  of  a  coat  of  stucco,  but  this  brings  the  cost 
up  very  nearly,  if  not  entirely,  to  that  of  brick.  Stucco  over  hol- 
low tile,  where  the  construction  of  the  house  is  similar,  is  a  good 
choice  of  materials.  But  any  stucco  or  concrete  wall  needs  to  be 
combined  with  some  other  material  such  as  brick  or  tile  to  make 

[42] 


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[43] 


The  Livable  House 

it  interesting,  and  good  examples  of  such  combinations  are  given 
in  the  chapter  on  garden  architecture. 

Stone  walls  laid  up  dry  have  the  advantage  of  taking  on  an  air 
of  age  more  rapidly  than  other  kinds,  and  there  is  no  doubt  about 
the  fact  that  age,  as  far  as  gardens  are  concerned,  is  desirable. 
The  crevices  between  stones  offer  hospitality  to  moss  and  rock 
plants,  which  soften  the  appearance  of  the  wall  and  make  it  as 
much  more  interesting  than  a  plain  surface  as  is  a  printed  page 
than  a  blank  sheet. 

Sometimes  old  stone  walls,  which  in  former  davs  marked 
cornfields  from  pasture  land  on  the  farms  of  our  grandfathers, 
have  been  successfully  moved  with  their  mosses  and  lichens  to 
contribute  the  dignitv  of  age  to  a  new  garden;  but  the  classic 
example  of  the  man  who  purchased  at  a  handsome  price  an  old 
moss-covered  barn,  had  each  stone  wrapped  separately  and  con- 
veyed to  the  distant  spot  where  he  proposed  to  build  his  house, 
only  to  lose  these  painfully  acquired  mosses  because  they  did  not 
like  their  new  home  in  the  sun,  offers  a  warning  to  those  who 
would  beat  Nature  at  her  own  game. 

The  steps  which  retaining  walls  necessitate  are  not  always  the 
pleasing  features  of  the  garden  it  is  possible  to  make  them,  prin- 
cipally because  thev  are  apt  to  be  too  small.  Sizes  which  look 
well  in  the  house  are  not  roomy  enough  outdoors,  for  the  scale  of 
garden  work  should  be  much  larger  than  that  of  house  work.  A 
room  eighteen  by  twenty-eight  feet  is  considered  a  fairly  large 
room,  but  a  garden  eighteen  by  twenty-eight  feet  would  scarcely 
divide  into  two  flower  borders  with  a  path  between.     Similarly 

[44] 


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A    GOOD    FLIGHT    OF    STEPS    IN    A 
RETAINING    W  A L  L 

Forest  Hills,  Long  Island.     Grosvenor  Atterbury,  Architect 

Us] 


The         Livable         H 


o     ti     s 


twelve  to  thirteen  inches  is  wide  enough  for  the  treads  of  steps 
indoors,  and  seven  inches  not  too  high  for  risers;  outside  the 
treads  should  be  broadened  and  the  heights  of  risers  lessened  if  an 
agreeable  effect  is  to  be  obtained.  A  tread  fifteen  inches  wide 
used  in  conjunction  with  a  six-inch-high  riser  is  a  very  comfort- 
able allowance;  a  higher  riser  is  apt  to  result  in  a  steep  looking 
flight  of  steps.  Treads  wider  than  fifteen  inches  should, 
of  course,  be  used  with  risers  less  than  six  inches,  following  a 
general  rule  that  the  product  of  the  height  of  the  riser  and  the 
width  of  tread  in  inches  should  be  about  ninety;  the  smaller  prod- 
uct of  seventy-two  is  adopted  for  indoor  work. 

Breadth  is  also  very  essential  to  the  comfortable  appearance 
of  steps.  This  should  vary  with  the  extent  of  the  wall  in  which 
the  steps  occur  and  the  difference  in  levels,  or  the  length  of  the 
flight.  No  rule  can  be  given  by  which  such  breadth  may  be  de- 
termined, because  it  is  a  matter  which  feeling  for  good  design 
alone  can  dictate;  but  it  is  safe  to  say  that  no  steps  should  be 
made  too  narrow  for  two  people  to  walk  abreast  (which  would 
establish  a  minimum  width  of  four  feet),  nor  so  large  as  to  over- 
power the  garden  to  which  they  lead. 

The  wing  walls,  necessitated  by  steps  which  project  to  any 
extent  beyond  a  wall,  are  often  the  means  of  spoiling  the  appear- 
ance of  the  steps.  Generally  speaking  these  walls  should  be  kept 
as  inconspicuous  as  possible,  for  it  is  easy  to  make  them  clumsy 
and  heavy.  Good  architectural  treatment  of  course  may  turn 
them  into  truly  decorative  features,  but  in  any  case  the  angle  or 
pocket  formed  by  a  projecting  flight  of  steps  is  awkward — and  it 

[46] 


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is  best  to  play  safe  and  sink  the  steps  partially,  if  not  wholly,  in- 
side the  wall.  Especially  is  this  true  of  a  long  flight — because 
the  appearance  of  length  is  greatly  increased  when  the  entire 
flight  is  plainly  visible. 


[47] 


General    Planting 


CHAPTER    T  W  O 

General    Planting 

^%&y£M  XDER  the  head  of  "General  Planting"  come  all  those 
■§■  I  l  -§•  miscellaneous  kinds  of  planting  which  cannot  be  in- 
fff!tJfr~m%  eluded  in  that  of  the  garden  proper.  Foundation 
planting,  border  planting,  the  planting  along  drives 
and  walks,  screen  planting,  specimen  planting,  and  miscellaneous 
flower  planting — all  of  these  are  worth  discussing  separately, 
because  very  often  one  of  these  kinds,  or  a  combination  of  two 
of  them,  constitutes  all  the  gardening  which  is  done  about  a 
place. 

Foundation  planting,  or  the  planting  about  the  base  of  build- 
ings, should  have  for  its  purpose  not — as  the  nursery  catalogue 
would  lead  one  to  believe — masking  the  foundations,  but  making 
the  house  look  as  if  it  belonged  in  its  surroundings.  There  is 
nothing  about  an  honest  foundation  wall  that  needs  concealing, 
and  it  is  unnecessarv  and  undesirable  that  the  house  should  grow 
out  of  a  solid  bank  of  shrubberv  in  order  to  hide  something  which, 
as  likelv  as  not,  the  architect  has  been  at  some  pains  to  make  in- 
teresting. A  judicious  amount  of  planting  here  and  there  about 
a  house — at  the  corners  or  in  angles,  with  something  tall  to  carry 
the  green  line  up  where  there  are  no  windows,  and  lower  growing 

r.5i] 


The  Livable  -House 

things  where  there  are — will  take  the  raw  new  look  away  from  a 
house  and  tie  it  down  adequately  to  the  lawn's  green  carpet. 

The  first  requirement  for  the  right  sort  of  foundation  planting, 
and,  for  the  matter  of  that,  the  last  too,  is  appropriateness.  All 
the  other  requirements,  namely  strength,  permanence,  and  proper 
scale,  are  included  in  this  one  term. 

Probably  the  most  common  of  the  inappropriate  sorts  of 
foundation  planting  is  that  which  appears  to  consist  of  one  each 
of  all  the  different  kinds  of  evergreens  contained  in  the  nursery- 
man's catalogue.  Every  suburb  and  real-estate  development 
abounds  in  houses  whose  foundations  are  surrounded  with  a  lot 
of  little  yellow  and  green  and  blue  balls,  cones,  and  pyramids, 
which  present  a  bristling,  unnatural  look  and  contribute  nothing 
of  repose  or  dignity  to  the  house.  What  could  be  less  appro- 
priate, less  calculated  to  make  the  house  look  as  if  it  belonged  to 
its  particular  bit  of  country,  than  this  collection  of  "specimen" 
evergreens?  "Specimens"  is  the  term  which  most  truly  describes 
them,  and  as  such  they  should  be  placed  in  arboretums.  An  ex- 
clusively evergreen  planting  is  always  bad  because  the  trees  are 
too  decided  and  definite  in  form;  they  need  the  more  graceful, 
branching,  deciduous  things  to  tie  them  together. 

The  chief  quality  on  which  evergreens  rely  for  their  popularity 
— the  quality  which  endears  them  to  most  people — is  their  ever- 
greenness.  And,  indeed,  their  color  in  the  winter  landscape  is 
very  desirable,  but  other  colors  than  green  contribute  cheer  to 
winter's  dullness — and  shrubs  with  colored  berries  and  branches 
may  be  combined  with  the  evergreens  into  a  much  more  pleasing 

[52] 


/       / 


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[53] 


The  Livable  House 

and  natural-looking  planting  than  one  of  evergreens  alone.  This 
is  true  of  rhododendrons  as  well  as  of  conifers,  for  a  house  which 
rises  up  out  of  a  heavy  somber  bank  of  broad-leaved  evergreens 
fits  as  poorly  into  the  landscape  as  one  whose  base  is  concealed 
by  ranks  of  little  conifers. 

Some  of  the  berried  shrubs  which  add  to  the  agreeable  appear- 
ance of  a  foundation  planting,  as  much  by  their  graceful  habit 
of  branching  as  by  their  colored  fruits,  are  the  barberries — Thun- 
bergii  and  vulgaris;  high  bush  cranberry  (viburnum  opulus), 
which  provides  from  its  bright  clusters  food  for  the  birds  all 
winter  long;  other  members  of  the  viburnum  family:  dentatum  or 
arrow-wood,  plicatum,  tomentosum,  and  Carlesii,  which  has  a 
wonderfully  fragrant  flower;  the  honeysuckles,  Indian  currant, 
and  snowberry;  ilex  Sieboldii  (a  little  known  but  very  brilliant 
berried  shrub)  ;  and  the  red  stemmed  dogwoods.  Of  these,  ber- 
beris  vulgaris,  all  the  viburnums,  the  honeysuckles,  and  dogwoods 
grow  to  be  big  shrubs  and  ought  therefore  to  be  planted  where 
they  will  not  interfere  with  windows.  Another  shrub  with  an 
impossible  name  but  with  the  unusual  possession  of  turquoise  col- 
ored berries  is  Symplocos  Crataegoides.  Its  berries  ripen  at  the 
same  time  as  those  of  the  Tartarian  honeysuckle,  and  the  two. 
shrubs  make  a  brilliant  combination.  Most  of  these  shrubs  have 
attractive  flowers  as  well  as  berries,  and  thus  provide  at  the  same 
time  for  the  summer  and  winter  appearance  of  the  base  planting. 
A  few  shrubs  interesting  chiefly  for  their  summer  dress  do  not 
come  amiss  in  any  group  near  the  house,  and  some  of  them  look 
especially  well  with  the  dark  foliage  of  evergreens:  lilacs,  white 

[54] 


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[55] 


The  Livable  House 

and  purple ;  deutzia,  Pride  of  Rochester,  pink  weigelia,  and  spirea 
Van  Houttei  are  all  good  stand-bys  which  improve  by  their  pres- 
ence any  planting  of  evergreens. 

Another  danger  to  be  avoided  in  connection  with  evergreens 
near  the  house  is  the  use  of  forest  trees.  In  most  cases,  either 
eagerness  for  a  quick  effect  or  ignorance  of  the  real  character  of 
the  trees  is  responsible  for  their  presence  close  to  the  house.  But 
whatever  the  cause,  it  is  not  an  uncommon  sight  to  see  the  win- 
dows of  houses  five  vears  or  so  old  being  overgrown  by  hemlocks, 
white  pines,  spruces,  and  firs.  These  are  all  big  timber  trees,  and 
for  this  reason  are  extremelv  inappropriate  planted  against  a  house 
wall.  Thev  belong  out  where  they  have  room  to  stretch  and  grow 
into  the  dignified  trees  Nature  meant  them  to  be. 

Some  of  the  smaller,  less-spreading  trees,  such  as  cedars,  arbor 
vita1,  and  retinosporas,  may  be  used  against  the  house  if  they  are 
planted  where  thev  will  not  come  in  the  way  of  windows.  At 
either  side  of  an  arch  on  the  W.  E.  Seeley  house  at  Bridgeport, 
cedars  are  well  placed  where  they  emphasize  the  entrance  and 
will  not  grow  out  of  bounds. 

Quite  at  the  opposite  end  of  the  scale  from  forest  trees  are 
flowers  as  a  foundation  planting,  and  for  a  correspondingly  oppo- 
site reason  thev  are  inappropriate.  I  refer,  as  in  the  case  of 
evergreens,  to  flowers  used  alone.  Some  of  the  stronger  growing 
sorts,  planted  in  connection  with  shrubs  or  vines,  as  Miss  Coffin 
has  used  lilies  and  peonies  along  the  piazza  of  the  Edgar  house, 
are  both  pleasing  and  appropriate;  but  the  border  of  pinks  and 
pansies  or  cannas  and  scarlet  sage  which  very  often  forms  the 

[56] 


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The  Livable  House 

sole  decoration  around  the  base  of  a  big  house  is  too  obvious  a 
violation  of  the  requirements  of  good  foundation  planting  not  to 
be  censured. 

Flowers  alone  lack  strength  and  that  feeling  of  permanence 
which  good  base  planting  should  have,  and,  moreover,  they  are 
out  of  scale  with  the  size  of  the  house.  They  need  shrubs  or 
vines  as  a  background  to  make  them  count  as  a  mass  rather  than 
as  individuals,  and  to  leave  something  growing  in  their  stead 
when  they  die  down  at  the  end  of  the  season. 

By  the  term  border  planting — the  second  of  the  miscellaneous 
sorts  under  the  head  of  general  planting — I  mean  combinations 
of  shrubs,  or  shrubs  and  trees,  such  as  one  finds  planted  along  a 
fence,  substituted  for  a  fence  at  the  edge  of  a  piece  of  property, 
around  a  garden,  or  at  the  end  of  the  lawn.  These  borders  divide 
themselves  into  two  classes:  naturalistic  or  woodland  borders,  and 
gardenesque  or  suburban. 

They  are  two  very  different  types,  and  a  sharp  line  should  be 
drawn  between  them,  because,  in  practice,  distinguishing  the  two 
makes  all  the  difference  between  a  commonplace  garden  and  one 
with  a  really  individual  quality;  or,  in  bigger  landscape  work,  the 
contrast  between  a  scheme  grandly  conceived  and  one  which  is 
petty  in  spirit. 

The  first  sort  of  planting  is  made  up  of  native  trees  and  shrubs 
— those  which  grow  naturally  along  meadow  hedgerows  or  in 
woodland  borders;  this  kind  of  border  should  be  used  away  from 
the  house  and  the  cultivated  garden,  in  places  where  a  transition 
is  to  be  effected  between  the  wild  and  the  cultivated,  or  where  the 

[58] 


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CEDARS    USED    PROPKRLV    NEAR    A 
HOUS  E    W  A  L  L 

Ho  use  of  Mr.  W.   E.  Seeley,   Bridgeport.   Connecticut 

Murphy  and  Dana,  Architects 

[59] 


The         Livable         H 


o      II 


spirit  of  native  things  is  to  be  introduced  or  preserved.  This 
bigger,  freer  sort  of  planting  should  be  founded  on  the  particular 
kind  of  landscape  in  which  it  occurs,  and  should  follow  Nature 
as  closely  as  possible.  A  lowland  border  would  not  be  composed 
of  the  same  trees  and  shrubs  as  would  an  upland  border,  nor 
would  either  of  these  plantings  be  the  same  in  Illinois  and  Massa- 
chusetts. Any  naturalistic  planting  should  express  the  character 
of  the  land  where  the  border  is  being  planted,  so  as  to  bring  out 
the  individuality  of  different  parts  of  the  country.  Discard  the 
bad  characteristics  of  your  especial  piece  of  property,  pick  out 
its  good,  features,  and  emphasize  them,  if  you  wish  your  garden 
different  from  your  neighbor's,  with  a  quality  of  its  own. 

If  you  have  a  stream  on  your  place  plant  the  borders  near  it 
with  those  shrubs  and  trees  which  grow  in  the  neighborhood  of 
water:  alder,  red-stemmed  dogwood,  the  lacy,  yellow-flowered 
spice  bush,  willows,  birches  (black  and  white),  elderberry  with 
its  white  panicles  of  fragrant  flowers  (which  turn  into  berries  that 
make  the  most  delicious  pie  in  the  world) ,  arrow-wood  which  also 
has  white  flowers — deceiving  white  flowers,  for  they  tempt  one 
into  smelling  them  and  then  offer  a  vile  reward;  button  bush, 
with  its  shining  leaves  and  white  balls — and  an  indefinite  list 
of  other  friendly  things,  which  like  low  places  better  than 
high. 

And  then  if  your  border  goes  up  hill,  plant  in  it  the  shrubs 
which  do  not  mind  burning  in  the  sun  of  a  long  hot  July  after- 
noon— sumach,  wild  roses,  hawthorn,  crabapple,  sassafras,  bay- 
berry,  red  bud,  and  witch  hazel.     But  above  all  things,  in  planting 

[60] 


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E  X  CEPTION  T  0  T  HE  R  L'  L  E  O  F  X 
FLOWERS  ABOUT  THE  HOUSE 
FOUNDATIO  X 

Garden   of.  Mrs.    J.   Clifton   Edgar,  at  Greenwich,   Connecticut 
Marian   C.   Coffin,  Landscape  Architect 

[6i] 


The  Livable  House 

such  a  border  as  this,  keep  out  the  petty  gardenesque  feeling — one 
weigelia  will  ruin  the  character  of  a  whole  group  of  field  plants; 
save  the  nursery  shrubs  for  the  flower  garden  and  the  planting 
near  the  house. 

The  converse  of  this  warning  is  not  true — any  number  of  na- 
tive shrubs  and  trees  can  be  introduced  into  a  border  of  lilacs 
and  spireas  and  altheas,  without  hurting  it  in  the  least;  but  one 
shrub  of  this  tamed  company  is  enough  to  dispel  the  illusion  of 
an  entire  naturalistic  planting.  The  same  strict  rule  is  observable 
in  connection  with  evergreens;  cedars,  white  pines,  Douglas 
spruce,  and  other  native  evergreens  take  their  places  very  prop- 
erly in  woodland  plantings,  but  retinosporas,  cryptomerias,  golden 
arbor  vita?,  smack  of  the  nursery — and  destroy  utterly  the  free 
spirit  of  the  woods  and  fields. 

Some  landscape  architects  never  get  away  from  the  suburban 
type  of  planting.  Their  materia  medica,  so  to  speak,  consists  of 
the  contents  of  the  nursery  catalogues,  and  they  treat  a  big  park 
just  as  they  would  a  little  garden  plot,  using  over  and  over  again 
barberry,  snowberry,  forsythia,  mock  orange,  and  spireas,  with 
perhaps  a  few  native  shrubs  mixed  in,  out  of  deference  to  a  dim 
idea  that  parks  should  be  planted  a  little  differently  from  small 
places.  But  the  big  conception  that  country  is  only  to  be  intro- 
duced into  city  by  means  of  fidelity  to  country  planting,  or  that 
the  spirit  of  existing  country,  its  own  particular  charm,  is  to  be 
preserved  only  by  adherence  to  the  example  it  sets,  quite  escapes 
them.  A  big  meadow  will  never  have  the  feel  of  a  real  meadow, 
will  never  be  anything  but  an  enlarged  lawn,  unless  it  be  fringed 

[62] 


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[63] 


The  Livable  House 

with  true  meadow  planting;  the  petty  suburban  feeling  creeps  in 
by  way  of  privet  and  weigelia  and  deutzia — and  the  spirit  of  dog- 
wood and  hawthorn  (the  native  kinds,  not  foreign  introduced 
sorts),  hazel  nut,  and  sumach  is  gone. 

I  do  not  mean  to  be  decrying  the  obvious  merits  of  our  faithful 
flowering  shrubs;  they  are  very  useful  and  very  beautiful,  but  I 
should  like  to  make  it  clear  that  they  are  essentially  of  the  house 
garden — that  they  have  a  tame  cat  feeling  which  belongs  near  the 
house,  and  that  they  should  be  left  behind  with  the  house  when  it 
is  the  spirit  of  woods  and  fields  one  is  trying  to  recall  in  planting. 
These  principles  are  true  of  the  elements  of  planting  along  drives 
and  walks  according  as  the  groups  of  shrubs  and  trees  are  near 
the  house  or  remote  from  it. 

The  form  which  the  planting  should  take  depends  upon  the 
form  of  the  drive  or  walk. 

The  avenue  tvpe  of  planting,  that  is  straight  rows  of  things, 
should  be  confined  to  walks  or  drives  which  are  straight;  irregular 
lines  demand  irregular  planting — both  as  to  height  and  breadth — 
and  a  drive  which  twists  and  curves  should  not  be  bordered  by 
straight  ranks  of  trees  and  bushes  of  even  height. 

It  is  probably  unnecessary  to  say  that  no  drive  or  walk  should 
curve  without  appearing  to  curve  for  a  reason,  and  if  it  curves 
just  for  the  sake  of  curving  an  excuse  has  to  be  supplied.  Under 
some  circumstances  it  so  happens  that  it  is  undesirable  to  fill  up 
all  the  bends  of  a  road  with  bushes;  thev  are  apt  to  give  a  shut-in 
feeling  to  the  drive  which  at  certain  points  is  unpleasant.  A 
tree  or  a  clump  of  trees  in  such  a  position  furnishes  the  needed  ex- 

[64] 


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cuse  for  a  turn  and  at  the  same  time  does  not  produce  the  confining 
effect  of  a  solid  mass  of  bushes. 

The  off  side,  so  to  speak,  of  a  curve  is  less  important  as  to  plant- 
ing. The  group  of  bushes  or  trees,  if  any  are  used  on  this  side  of 
the  drive,  should  consist  of  kinds  similar  to  those  on  the  opposite 
side,  and  may  be  carried  back  away  from  the  drive  in  some  such 

form  as  that  shown  in  the  dia- 


Diagram   illustrating  planting 
in   the  bend  of  a  drive 


gram,  with  low  growing  stuff 
in  front  to  emphasize  the  bay, 
and  higher  growing  things  be- 
hind. Correspondingly,  the 
point  on  the  opposite  side 
might  be  marked  by  high 
shrubs,  although  observance 
of  the  demands  of  automobil- 
ists  who  must  be  able  to  see 
along  the  entire  length  of  a 
drive,  is  fast  leveling  off  all 
border  planting. 
There  is  a  purely  sentimen- 


tal reason  for  making  the  planting  in  a  bend  high,  to  which  I,  who 
do  not  mind  driving  slowly  along  a  curving  road,  am  inclined  to 
cling,  and  that  is  the  pleasure  of  not  knowing  what  lies  just  ahead. 
Mysterv  always  has  its  charm,  and  I  would  rather  be  surprised  by 
coming  out  of  a  wood  suddenly  onto  a  green  stretch  of  lawn  than 
know  all  along  that  presently  we  shall  be  running  at  the  edge  of 
the  green  velvet  strip,  which  I  can  see  across  the  low  bushes. 

[66] 


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Garden  of  Mr.   Edward  E.  Sprague,  at  Elushing.  Long 
Island.      Marian   C.   Coffin,   Landscape  Architect 

[67] 


The  Livable  House 

Screen  planting,  the  fourth  kind  of  general  planting,  may  con- 
sist of  irregular  borders  of  shrubs  and  trees,  or  of  hedges.  The 
latter  are  usually  regarded  as  the  logical  means  of  screening  a 
service  drive,  or  laundrv  yard,  or  unneighborly  nuisance.  They 
are  the  most  obvious  form  of  screen,  the  form  most  often  used, 
and  in  some  ways  the  least  effective,  for  their  purpose  is  generally 
as  apparent  as  that  of  a  trellis  or  wall  would  be.  Like  these 
they  need  planting  outside  to  tie  them  into  the  general  land- 
scape. 

Anv  kind  of  clipped  hedge  is,  of  course,  slower  in  attaining 
height  than  plants  which  are  allowed  to  grow  unchecked  by  the 
pruning  shears.  It  follows  that  a  free-growing  border  will  screen 
faster  and  more  effectively  than  a  hedge.  But  the  most  valid 
reason  for  giving  anv  irregular  planting  preference  is  that  it 
can  be  made  a  part  of  the  landscape.  When  a  hedge  is  used  either 
for  a  screen  or  as  the  boundary  of  a  garden  it  should  have  some- 
thing in  the  way  of  transition  planting  outside  it — a  few  groups 
of  shrubs  and  trees  to  break  the  definite  form  and  regular  line  of 
the  hedge,  and  to  "ease"  it  into  its  surroundings. 

Of  the  deciduous  hedges,  probably  privet  is  the  most  common 
and  the  most  useful.  It  is  obligingly  adaptable,  grows  quickly, 
and  has  a  dignified  appearance.  Barberry  makes  a  somewhat 
smaller  hedge,  never  growing  over  four  or  five  feet  high,  and  is 
more  spreading  in  character.  Some  effort  has  been  made  to  in- 
troduce hornbeam  and  beech  as  hedges.  These  are  both  good, 
dignified  hedges,  and  along  with  our  native  hawthorns  could 
be  utilized  delightfully  around  gardens;  but  their  slow  growth 

[68] 


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[69] 


The  Livable  House 

and  greater  cost  too  often  combine  to  make  the  weedier  privet  a 
favorite. 

Among  evergreens,  more  fame  attaches  to  the  name  of  box 
than  to  any  other  kind  of  hedge.  It  is  truly  the  aristocrat  among 
hedges,  and  an  old  specimen  commands  respect  and  veneration 
from  a  hurrying  generation,  which  appreciates  to  the  full  its 
meager  inheritance  but  fails  to  provide  for  its  children  any  more 
generously. 

It  is  only  human  to  want  immediate  returns  on  an  investment, 
to  plant  for  an  early  effect,  to  be  impatient  of  waiting  for  results; 
and  yet  a  garden  should  be  planned  with  some  eye  to  permanence 
as  well,  and  the  poplars  that  go  in  because  of  their  rapid  growth 
should  be  tempered  with  timber  trees  to  give  dignity  to  the  garden 
a  decade  hence,  and  a  beech  hedge  started  whenever  possible  to 
overawe  the  privet  by  and  by,  or  one  of  hawthorn,  which  will 
cover  its  twisted  old  stems  with  white  blossoms  in  the  spring  and 
red  apples  in  the  fall. 

To  return  to  evergreen  hedges,  both  dwarf  arbor  vitae  and  the 
yews  (taxus  brevifolia  and  brevifolia  cuspidata)  make  good  low 
hedges;  and  hemlock,  arbor  vita?,  and  cedar  are  all  more  or  less 
dependable  high  hedges.  Of  these  arbor  vitae  turns  rusty  in  the 
winter  and  hemlock  sometimes  "kills  back,"  but  at  the  height  of 
its  glory  hemlock  probably  comes  Jiearest  to  possessing  that  dark, 
solid  green  appearance  of  English  yew  hedges,  which  is  so  much 
the  envy  of  us  in  our  drier  climate. 

Ilex — of  somewhat  doubtful  hardihood  in  Northern  winters — 

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[73] 


The  Livable  House 

trims  well  into  a  hedge,  and  has  no  other  fault  than  its  great  ex- 
pense. 

Perhaps  a  word  as  to  the  form  to  which  hedges  should  be 
trimmed  would  not  come  amiss.  If  the  hedge  be  appreciably 
wider  at  the  top  than  it  is  at  the  bottom  it  holds  the  snow  in  winter, 
which  is  apt  to  break  apart  the  bushes,  and  prevents  both  moisture 
from  reaching  the  roots  and  a  full  amount  of  sunlight  from  com- 


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third  inadvisable 


ing  to  the  lower  portions  of  the  hedge.  For  these  reasons  a  hedge 
trimmed  straight  up  and  down  or  with  a  wider  base  than  top,  is 
better  than  one  of  a  wedge  shape. 

The  term  "specimen  planting"  immediately  conjures  up  pic- 
tures of  a  lawn  spotted  over  with  blue  spruces  and  Japanese  red 
maples — and  weeping  mulberries.  This  is  the  sort  of  planting 
which  has  attached  unpleasant  association  to  the  term  "specimen 

f74] 


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A    S  T  R  A  1  G  H  T    F  LOW  E  R  -  B  ()  R  D  E  R  E  U 

W  A  I .  K 

Estate  of  Edward   E.  Sprague,  Esq.,  at   Flushing,  Long 
Island.     Marian  C.  Coffin,   Landscape  Architect 

[75] 


T     h     c  L     /'     v     able  Ho     u     s     e 

planting,"  and  all  but  limited  its  use  to  such  a  meaning.  But 
there  are  appropriate  places  for  specimen  trees  and  bushes  of  the 
right  sort — although  there  is  no  place  for  exotic-looking  speci- 
mens but  the  museum  or  arboretum. 

The  general  rule  of  keeping  centers  of  lawns  and  open  spaces 
clear  and  confining  the  planting  to  borders,  with  the  possible  ex- 
ception in  the  case  of  big  spaces  to  a  very  limited  number  of 
judiciously  planted  groups,  is  familiar  to  every  one  in  this  day  of 
the  ubiquitous  garden  article.  But  too  rigid  an  interpretation  of 
the  rule  is  apt  to  result  in  wall-like  borders;  these  may  be  broken 
here  and  there,  and  points  may  be  brought  out  or  emphasized  by 
the  use  of  individual  trees  and  bushes.  Such  points  as  these  offer 
opportunities  for  planting  the  especially  fine  bush  or  tree,  the 
good  qualities  of  which  one  wishes  to  exhibit. 

The  corners  of  flower  beds,  doorways  and  gates,  avenues — such 
prominent  places  as  these  call  for  the  picked  or  specimen  plant. 

Using  specimen  in  the  sense  of  any  chosen  or  carefully  selected 
thing,  there  is  another  sort  of  specimen  planting  which  is  valu- 
able— that  of  the  tree  or  bush  chosen  for  its  interesting,  rather 
than  its  perfect,  form.  One  example — the  very  delightful  foun- 
tain at  Forest  Hills  Gardens — will  serve  to  illustrate  the  charm 
contributable  by  a  gnarlv  twisted  specimen  which  has  the  pleas- 
ing look  of  just  happening. 

The  terrace  of  the  Hoyt  house  at  Southampton  has  several  sets 
of  very  pleasing  specimens:  the  old  Paulownia  trees  on  either  side 
of  the  steps,  the  yews  and  the  hydrangeas.  Incidentally  this 
planting  is  peculiarly  suitable  to  the  type  of  architecture.     The 

[76] 


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[77] 


The  Livable  House 

coarse  leaves  of  the  trees,  the  showy  flowers  of  the  hydrangeas,  and 
the  evergreens  have  a  luxuriant  effect  which  is  especially  appro- 
priate with  the  stucco,  Italian  house. 

There  are  certain  sorts  of  flower  plantings  which  come  under 
no  general  head,  and  are  pleasures  to  the  eye,  others  which  are 
just  messy  and  purposeless.  Of  the  first,  one  of  the  most  pleasing 
kinds  is  spring  bulbs  naturalized  in  grass.  Nothing  is  lovelier 
than  narcissus  and  Virginia  cowslip  blooming  in  stretches  of 
white  and  blue — or  the  little  grape  hyacinth  flashing  its  blue  near 
the  yellow  dandelion  which  flowers  at  the  same  time — or  masses 
of  purple  hyacinths  and  golden  daffodils. 

Other  flowers,  for  the  most  part  native  ones,  are  good  natural- 
ized in  bold  groups,  or  planted  in,  here  and  there  with  shrubbery. 
For  the  latter  kind  of  planting,  flowers  which  are  woodland  in 
character  or  strong  growing  flowers  are  best:  foxgloves,  colum- 
bines, echinops — the  showy  orange  helenium,  asters,  boltonia, 
monkshood — are  all  more  or  less  colorful  in  a  border  of  shrubs, 
for  they  flower  in  sufficient  masses  to  make  themselves  felt. 

But  most  flowers  should  be  collected  into  a  flower  garden, 
however  small  it  may  be,  rather  than  be  scattered  about  in  promis- 
cuous beds  and  borders.  They  count  for  more  arranged  together 
in  this  way  because  it  is  possible  to  get  bigger  stretches  of  color 
at  once.  The  flowers  can  be  cared  for  more  easily  and  profitably, 
and  the  chances  are  they  leave  the  rest  of  the  place  looking  tidier 
and  less  cluttered.  A  wavy  border  of  perennials  following  the 
outlines  of  a  shrub  border  is  rarely  a  success,  for  the  flower  bor- 
ders are  seldom  wide  enough  to  count,  and  they  succeed  only  in 

[78] 


Its  Garden 

imparting  a  ragged  look  to  the  shrubs.  A  straight  border  against 
a  hedge,  it  the  place  is  not  large  enough  for  a  garden,  or  a  wide 
border  along  a  walk,  is  more  effective  than  the  wavy  ribbon  of  a 
curving  border  following  the  outlines  of  shrubs. 

Of  flowers  about  foundation  walls  I  have  spoken  in  the  first 
part  of  this  chapter.  For  garden  walls,  rules  are  less  rigid;  here 
the  idea  of  permanence  in  planting  is  not  so  important,  and  al- 
though the  appearance  of  the  wall  and  the  flower  borders  both 
benefit  bv  vines  and  an  occasional  shrub  planted  against  the  wall, 
these  are  not  the  necessities  demanded  by  a  house  wall.  The 
planting  at  the  base  of  the  Hubbard  pergola  is  a  pleasing  com- 
bination of  vines,  wall  surface,  and  flowers. 

The  final  test  to  which  any  of  the  kinds  of  planting  listed  at  the 
beginning  of  the  chapter  must  be  put,  is  that  of  appropriateness. 
The  object  of  each  especial  planting  must  be  considered,  the 
purpose  for  which  it  is  planted,  or  the  atmosphere  it  is  designed  to 
produce,  and  those  shrubs,  trees,  and  flowers  used  which  will  con- 
tribute to  this  effect.  Types  of  planting  are  just  as  distinct  as 
human  beings,  with  personalities  as  different,  and  they  must  be 
arranged  with  the  same  care  one  expends  in  choosing  guests  at  a 
dinner  party,  if  the  effect  is  to  be  harmonious  and  satisfying. 


[79] 


The   F lower    Garden 


CHAPTER    THREE 
The     Flo  w  e  r    Gar  d  f.  n 

^JS-®-?L>-  N  the  seventeenth  century,  formal  gardening  was  car- 

Vs    ...    V 

®      I      ®    ried  to  such  an  extreme  that  the  possibilities  of  even 

sk     A    h 

»'fm'®"m^   bedding  plants  were  exhausted.     To  most  of  us  who 


have  seen  names  of  cemeteries  and  towns,  and  every- 
thing from  a  locomotive  to  the  United  States  flag  emblazoned  in 
tidy  little  coleus  and  begonia  plants,  it  seems  improbable  that  the 
need  of  even  stiffer  materials  with  which  to  execute  patterns 
should  have  been  felt.  This  appears  to  have  been  the  case,  how- 
ever, for  colored  sand  and  glass  were  substituted  in  beds  for 
flowers,  and  two  centuries  have  not  sufficed  to  live  down  the  un- 
pleasant atmosphere  that  attached  itself  to  the  word  formal — 
most  people  still  experience  a  slight  chill  when  a  formal  garden 
is  referred  to — and  visions  of  clipped  trees,  busts  of  Caesar  and 
Cicero,  and  gravel  paths  stretch  away  toward  their  mental 
horizons. 

Unfortunately,  there  is  no  word  which  expresses  the  "laid  out"' 
quality  of  the  word  "formal" — its  straight  paths  and  regular 
curves — and  at  the  same  time  conveys  an  idea  of  charm.  The 
term  "planned  garden"  is  incorrect  because  a  naturalistic  garden 
calls  for  just  as  much  planning  as  does  a  formal  garden,  and 

[Si] 


The  Livable  H 


o     n     s     e 


"geometric"  is  forbiddingly  mathematical.  But,  with  or  without 
a  name,  it  is  this  pleasingly  ordered  flower  garden  I  am  going  to 
write  about  first — the  naturalistic  or  "studied  haphazard"  garden 
will  come  later — and  the  formal  garden,  that  is  the  unpleasantly 
formal  garden  of  gravel  and  bedding  plants,  can  be  left  out  of 
our  calculations  altogether. 

Probably  the  most  important  point  in  the  consideration  of  the 
first  kind  of  garden  is  its  location;  this,  it  goes  without  saving, 
should  be  near  the  house,  or,  if  it  cannot  be  near  the  house,  it 
should  be  definitely  off  by  itself,  away  from  it.  Some  houses, 
especially  those  of  the  latter  part  of  the  Victorian  period — high- 
stooped  houses  with  meaningless  porches,  and  poorly  arranged 
rooms — never  could  be  conveniently  opened  into  a  garden.  For 
these  the  flower  garden  should  be  a  separate,  independent  crea- 
tion, with  the  way  leading  to  it  made  as  attractive  as  possible, 
with  its  own  walls  or  borders,  and  its  own  plan,  independent  of 
that  of  the  house.  But  the  garden  which  is  planned  along  with 
the  house  should  be  "tied  up"  to  it  in  some  fashion  if  possible — 
perhaps  the  entrance  to  the  garden  may  be  through  a  sun  porch, 
perhaps  the  first  flower  beds  border  a  paved  terrace  intimately, 
perhaps  the  paths  run  out  from  long  windows  or  doors  of  the 
house  and  form  flower-bordered  vistas  for  its  occupants;  in  any 
case  the  ideal  garden  picks  up  the  lines  of  the  house  and  continues 
them  in  its  own,  for  this  formalistic  garden  is  of  the  house  and  its 
belongings;  it  dispenses  with  the  roof  and  modifies  the  walls  to 
let  in  sunshine  and  air,  and  substitutes  flowers  that  are  alive  for  the 
painted  ones  of  silks  and  chintzes.     In  enlarging  the  scale  of  the 

[84] 


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[8s] 


The  Livable  H 


o     u 


house,  however,  it  does  not  lose  the  intimate  feeling  of  a  iiving- 
roora,.  but  merely  adds  to  it  the  free  spirit  of  outdoors.  This 
is  accomplished  by  twj  factors,  the  first,  walling  the  garden  in; 
the  second,  proper  proportion. 

Walls  used  in  this  sense  do  not  have  to  be  of  brick  or  concrete 

— a  shrub  border,  a  high  hedge,  the  house  wall,  anything  which 

- 
confines  the  garden  and  limits  the  view,  serves  the  purpose.  Al- 
most all  of  .us  can  recall  gardens  set  in  the  midst  of  a  great  lawn, 
or  lying  in  the  foreground  of  a  distant  view,  and  can  remember 
feeling  vaguely  that  there  was  something  wrong  with  the  garden, 
even  though  the  flowers  were  very  15vely.  And  the  reason  for  our 
discontent  was  the  looseness  of  the  garden,  its  loss  of  scale  by  com- 
parison with  such  great  distance,  its  ineffectiveness. 

Some  sort  of  wall  for  this  same  garden  would  have  transformed 
it  no  doubt — and  increased  its  interest  a  hundredfold. 

In  the  process  of  walling  in  the  garden  it  is  not  necessary  to 
shut  out  every  prospect — to  leave  no  distant  views  at  all — the 
garden  wall  should  contain  windows  even  as  the  house  wall  does. 
Views  glimpsed  through  a  f'ame  of  trees,  or  a  gateway,  are  ever 
so  much  more  inviting  than  panoramas,  because  they  lure  us  on 
with  a  promise  instead  of  satisfying  us  at  a  glance. 

The  boundary  around  the  Hubbard  garden  is  a  delightful  com- 
bination of  garden  wall  and  picture  frame;  it  ties  the  garden  in 
without  shutting  out  entirely  the  surroundings  and  limits  it  with- 
out confining  it. 

Proper  proportion  within  the  flower  garden,  the  second  factor 
which  is  responsible  for  its  atmosphere  of  friendliness,  rebates  to 

[86] 


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AN  ANTE  ROOM  TO  THE  GARDEN 

House  at   Villa   Nova,   Pennsylvania.      Duhring,   Okie   and 
Ziegler,  Architects 

[87] 


The  Livable  House 

sizes  of  beds,  paths,  stretches  of  green,  etc.  Even  though  one  has 
conscientiously  built  a  wall  around  the  garden,  narrow  beds  or 
small  flowers,  lost  in  a  sea  of  green  grass,  will  still  leave  it  with  a 
big  loose  feeling,  or  too  many  flowers  and  narrow  paths  make  it 
cramped.  Beds  must  be  of  sufficient  size  so  that  the  flowers  will 
count  in  masses,  and  paths  should  be  wide  enough  so  that  two 
people  may  walk  abreast  on  them.  Half  the  fun  of  a  garden  is 
showing  it  to  some  one  else — and  to  have  to  walk  through  it  single 
file  is  as  uncomfortable  as  having  to  pass  down  a  narrow  hall  side- 
wise  for  fear  of  scraping  one's  elbows. 

Four  feet  six  inches  is  the  minimum  width  which  will  allow 
two  people  to  walk  comfortably  side  by  side,  and  a  flower  bed 
which  is  narrower  than  seven  feet  used  in  connection  with  such 
a  path  is  apt  to  look  thin  and  tenuous.  Ten  feet  is  in  better  pro- 
portion. Small  dooryard  gardens  and  box  gardens  are  exceptions 
to  this  rule,  and  the  paths  of  such  gardens  may  be  three  feet  or 
even  narrower. 

In  a  larger  garden  a  lot  of  small  beds  cut  up  by  as  many  paths 
make  the  garden  a  restless  place,  just  as  numerous  little  rugs  on 
the  floor  of  a  room  spoil  its  repose  and  dignity.  Big  masses  of 
flowers  and  paths  wide  enough  to  be  in  proportion  are  essentials, 
if  a  garden  is  to  be  comfortable  and  livable — and  at  the  same 
time  pictoriallv  worth  while. 

A  stretch  of  green  in  the  garden  with  the  beds  grouped  about  it 
is  a  good  plan  to  adopt,  when  lawn  space  about  the  grounds  is 
limited,  or  when  for  any  reason  the  garden  is  apt  to  have  a  shut-in 
feeling.     In  any  case  the  scheme  rightly  handled  is  a  good  one 

[88] 


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Plan   of  the  Garden   of  Mr.   Aymar  Embury   II, 
Architect,   Englewood,   New  Jersey 


and  makes  for  repose  and  spaciousness;  an  all-over  pattern,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  apt  to  be  less  pleasing  for  reasons  which  are  hard  to 
analyze.  Perhaps  because  it  tends  to  be  complicated  and  rest- 
less, perhaps  because  it  easily  becomes  cramped  in  feeling — in  any 
case  it  is  well  to  make  paths  wide  and  beds  spacious  at  the  ex- 
pense of  numbers  in  such  a  garden,  for  nothing  so  reduces  the 
apparent  size  of  a  garden  as  paths  that  are  too  narrow. 

Three  examples  of  the  central  stretch  of  turf  type  of  garden, 
each  one  differently  handled,  are  Mr.  Marshall  Fry's,  Mr. 
Michael  Jenkins',  and  Mr.  Jonathan  Godfrey's  gardens.  Each 
one  of  these,  I  venture  to  say,  would  seem  smaller  and  less  repose- 
ful if  the  same  spaces  were  covered  all  over  with  flower  beds  and 

190] 


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[91] 


The  Livable  House 

paths.     At  the  same  time  the  very  crowdedness  of  things  in  the 
picture  of  Mr.  Aymar  Embury's  garden  is  not  without  its  charm. 

The  paths  of  either  type  of  garden,  however,  must  have  a  pur- 
pose, must  lead  somewhere — around  the  garden  and  in  and  out— 
for  a  path  with  a  blind  end,  a  path  along  which  one  walks  only 
to  turn  about  and  retrace  one's  steps,  always  contains  disappoint- 
ment. 

Next  in  importance,  after  the  location  and  design  of  the  garden, 
comes  the  arrangement  of  flowers.  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  al- 
most every  one  is  prone  to  look  upon  the  flowers  as  of  paramount 
importance.  It  is  true  that  sheets  of  bloom  will  conceal  a  great 
many  defects  in  design;  but  the  flowers  are  passing,  and  may  be 
changed  at  any  time,  whereas  a  garden  once  laid  out  is  often  im- 
possible to  alter. 

Color  and  season  are  the  two  factors  in  flower  arrangement 
which  must  be  considered  simultaneously.  If  one  has  planned  to 
have  no  red  in  the  garden  at  the  same  time  pink  flowers  are  in 
bloom,  it  is  disconcerting  to  have  the  scarlet  of  oriental  poppies 
flaunt  itself  in  the  face  of  a  rose  pink  peony.  Red  is,  in  any  event, 
the  greatest  trouble  maker  in  the  garden,  and  when  one  has  made 
up  one's  mind  to  have  the  warmth  of  this  color  everything  else 
must  be  planned  around  it;  moreover,  no  two  reds  are  alike,  and  a 
red  garden  must  consist  almost  wholly  of  one  flower  or  at  least 
of  the  one  which  happens  to  be  in  bloom  at  the  moment.  Con- 
sternation is  in  store  for  the  jumbler  of  reds — one  has  only  to 
think  of  the  cardinal  of  lobelia,  and  the  good  honest  turkey  red  of 
scarlet  sage  ablaze  at  once  to  realize  this. 

[92! 


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I TH    A    NAT  U  R A  L    FOR  E ST 
B AC  KG  ROUND 

Estate  of  Mr.  Charles  W.  Hubbard,  at  Weston,  Massachusetts 

Olmsted   Brothers,  Landscape  Architects 

[93] 


The  Livable  House 

The  fewer  the  varieties  of  any  color  in  a  garden,  the  greater 
are  the  pictorial  effects  obtainable,  and  a  good  plan  to  follow  is 
to  pick  out  a  succession  of  twos,  which  will  be  blooming  at  once, 
and  plant  the  garden  all  round  with  groups  of  these.  For  ex- 
ample, a  succession  consisting  of  the  following  pairs:  pink  peonies 
and  blue  anchusa,  yellow  coreopsis  and  the  resplendent  blue  lark- 
spur, purple  spikes  of  veronica  and  pink  phlox,  lavender  asters 
and  bronze  dahlias,  provides  the  garden  with  a  series  of  color 
combinations  which  should  be  very  lovely  from  May  until  frost; 
the  overlapping  of  seasons — for  of  course  some  few  flowers  of 
each  group  will  come  into  bloom  before  the  preceding  group  is 
done,  and  the  coreopsis  and  larkspur  will  flower  more  or  less  all 
summer — will  furnish  the  garden  with  a  sufficient  amount  of  va- 
riety to  offset  the  main  mass  of  bloom.  These  combinations  may 
be  varied  infinitely:  salmon  pink  oriental  poppies  with  their  silky 
flapping  leaves  are  lovely  with  the  blue  of  Italian  alkanet ;  and  the 
prickly  lavender  balls  of  echinops  are  pretty  with  a  deep  salmon 
phlox. 

White  is  always  good,  even  in  a  garden  which  sets  out  to  con- 
fine itself  to  rigid  color  combinations;  in  fact,  it  may  be  used  to 
furnish  the  body  or  warp,  so  to  speak,  of  the  pattern ;  white  phlox, 
or  shasta  daisies,  or  gypsophila,  woven  in  all  through  a  garden  of 
two  contrasting  colors  adds  a  lightness  to  the  whole  picture  which 
is  pleasing  to  the  eye. 

In  any  arrangement  of  few  varieties  such  as  this,  the  same 
groups  should  be  repeated  all  along  a  border — or  at  intervals  the 
whole  way  round  a  garden — so  that  when  peonies  and  anchusa 

[94] 


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Plan  of  the  garden   of  Mr.   Charles  W.   Hubbard,  at  Weston, 
Massachusetts.     Olmsted   Brothers,  Landscape  Architects 

[95] 


The  L     i     v     a     b     I     e  H 


o     n 


are  in  bloom,  peonies  and  anchusa  flower  all  over  the  garden  and 
not  just  in  one  portion;  or  when  phlox  and  veronica  are  in  season 
the  whole  garden  is  aglow  with  purple  and  pink. 

In  a  garden  of  many  varieties  a  somewhat  different  arrange- 
ment must  be  adopted  so  that  the  flowers  will  not  have  a  scatter- 
ing appearance.  More  varieties  necessitate  fewer  flowers  of  a 
kind,  and  these  must  be  planted  in  groups  big  enough  to  count  as 
masses;  and  the  masses,  moreover,  must  drift  into  one  another  and 
not  have  the  appearance  of  blocks.  To  accomplish  this  latter  ob- 
ject it  is  necessary  to  lap  the  mass  of  one  kind  of  flower  bv  that  of 
another;  or,  to  put  it  another  way,  to  scatter  one  group  into  the 
next. 

Color  arrangement  of  this  sort  of  border  is  complicated  and 
difficult  to  manage  effectivelv.  Miss  Gertrude  Jekvll,  a  very  able 
writer  about  English  gardens,  has  taken  up  verv  fully  in  her  book 
called  "Color  in  the  Flower  Garden,"  the  graduation  of  color  in 
a  border.  Miss  Jekyll  says  that  it  is  possible  to  plant,  beginning 
with  vellow  through  orange  and  red  to  pink,  purple,  violet,  and 
blue — and  this  is  undoubtedlv  true  of  one  of  those  illimitable 
English  borders  which  seem  to  stretch  away  to  infinity.  Un- 
fortunately American  gardens  are  sadly  lacking  in  borders  four- 
teen or  fifteen  feet  wide  and  three  hundred  feet  long.  For  the 
most  part  our  gardens  are  small,  and  it  has  been  my  sad  expe- 
rience that  some  of  the  vivid  zinnias  have  been  just  as  blighting 
separated  from  the  pink  phlox  by  a  patch  of  white  as  they  would 
have  been  next  door  to  it.  In  anv  garden,  all  of  which  is  visible 
at  once,  it  is  best  to  limit  the  flowers  to  varieties  which  harmonize, 

[96] 


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[99] 


The  Livable  H 


o     u 


and  to  save  all  the  others  for  a  secret  garden,  or  a  cutting  garden. 
It  is  hard  to  rule  out  one's  favorites  and  consign  them  to  a  general 
mixture,  but  it  becomes  necessarv  when  they  clash  with  other 
favorites,  and  when  there  is  not  unlimited  space  in  the  main 
garden. 

In  arranging  flowers  with  respect  to  form,  the  main  thing  to  re- 
member is  that  a  general  uniformity  in  character  and  size  of  plants 
is  undesirable.  Low  things  need  to  be  broken  occasionally  by 
taller  plants,  large  leaves  contrasted  with  small,  and  fine  lacey 
foliage  solidified  by  coarser-leaved  plants. 

The  general  rule  that  tall  things  should  be  kept  to  the  back  of 
the  border  with  lower  growing  plants  in  front,  ought  not  to  be 
enforced  to  the  point  of  giving  the  plants  an  appearance  of  tier 
arrangement.  The  hollyhocks  and  boltonia  and  foxgloves  should 
run  forward  here  and  there  into  the  phlox  and  sweet  William,  in 
order  to  break  up  their  too  even  line,  and  the  blue  bells  and  for- 
get-me-nots would  suffer  no  harm  from  an  intrusion  of  the  phlox 
and  sweet  William. 

An  occasional  shrub  or  bush  rose,  if  the  border  be  very  wide 
or  over  long,  is  pleasing  among  the  flowers,  and  used  at  the  corners 
of  flower  beds  it  acts  as  an  accent  and  contributes  strength,  where 
strength  is  desirable. 

Some  regard  for  appropriateness  in  character  should  be  exer- 
cised in  flower  planting  even  in  the  formal  garden.  For  example, 
plants  which  recall  something  of  the  feeling  which  belongs  to 
watersides  should  grow  near  a  pool.  Iris  and  grasses  are 
reminders  of  streams;  so  are  blue  forget-me-nots,   the  brilliant 

[ioo] 


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The         Livable         House 


[102] 


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W  A  TERS1D  E    P  L  A  N  T  S    G  R  O  W  I  N  G    N  E  A  R 
A    FORMAL    POOL 

Garden   of  Mrs.    Harry    Payne   Whitney,  tit  Westbury,   Long 
Island.     Delano  and   Aldrich,  Architects 

[103] 


The  Livable  House 

cardinal  flower,  ferns,  purple  iron  weed,  tall  marsh  mallows,  and 
the  rosy  Joe  pie  weed.  It  is  surprising  how  at  home  these  plants 
are  in  the  garden  proper  among  their  more  aristocratic  com- 
panions, and  how  much  of  real  charm — a  charm  which  is  due  to 
their  appropriateness — thev  lend  to  the  water  near  which  they 
grow. 

If  the  pool  is  to  have  a  really  friendly  feeling,  the  planting 
should  extend  in  places  to  the  water's  edge.  Nothing  is  colder 
and  less  inviting  than  a  stone-rimmed  pool  set  in  the  midst  of 
gravel.  It  has  a  harsh,  ungracious  look,  that  just  a  few  leaves 
bending  over  the  edge  would  mitigate,  or  a  stray  vine  soften.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  bad  to  surround  a  pool  entirely  with  flowers 
and  shrubs  so  as  to  make  it  inaccessible.  Places  for  planting  near 
the  border  should  be  incorporated  in  the  design  in  some  such  way 
as  to  provide  walks  to  the  water's  edge,  and  intervals  between,  for 
iris  or  ferns  or  grasses. 

Planting  for  the  surfaces  of  the  water  itself  needs  care  and 
thought  for  appropriateness,  as  well  as  regard  for  scale.  More 
often  than  not  pools  too  small  to  warrant  such  huge  leaves  are 
planted  with  lotus,  or  tall  cat-tails,  or  both,  when  their  size  really 
demands  the  smallest  of  the  nymphaeas  and  the  fine  leaves  of  spike 
rush  or  Scirpus.  Most  aquatics  grow  rapidly  and  unless  they  are 
constantly  thinned  out  they  cover  the  entire  water  surface  and 
leave  no  mirror  to  reflect  bending  purple  flags,  and  white  clouds. 
With  a  little  taste  and  care  in  thinning,  the  groups  of  lily  pads 
and  grasses  may  be  made  into  compositions  interesting  and  pleas-, 
ing  in  themselves. 

[104] 


1  t  s 


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W  A  TER    LI  LY    PADS    WHICH    LEA  V  E    A 

P L  E  A  S I  N G    W A TER    SLR  F A  C E 

OPEN    FOR    REFLECTIONS 

House  of  Mr.  Thomas  H.    Kerr,  at  White   Plains,  A  pic 
York.     Albro  and  Lindebcrg,  Architects 

[105] 


FALLS  AT  THE  END  OF  THE 

SWIMMING  POOL 

Estate  of  Mr.   K.   D.   Alexander,  at   Spring  Station, 

Kentucky.     Jens  Jensen,  Landscape  Architect 

[106] 


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A    T  E  R  R  A  C  E    G  A  R  D  E.\    WITH    A    POOL 

AG  A  I  X  ST    T  H  E    W  A  L  L 

Grounds  of  Mr.  H.  H.  Rogers,  at  Tuxedo,  New  York 

Walker  and   Gillette,  Architects 
[107] 


The  Livable  Ho     u     s     e 

The  aquatics  in  the  average  pool  should  consist  of  hardy  varie- 
ties which  may  be  bedded  in  the  pool  bottom  itself,  rather  than  the 
tender  sorts  which  for  cultural  reasons  have  to  be  planted  in  pots. 
The  pots  are  too  apt  to  show  through  the  water,  and  introduce  an 
artificial  quality  which  detracts  from  the  grace  of  the  pool. 

Fitness,  which  is  only  a  synonym  for  appropriateness,  depends 
in  pool  planting,  as  in  all  other  kinds,  upon  attention  to  details 
which  will  emphasize  the  character  of  the  area  to  be  planted- 
details  which  will  contribute  to  the  effect  to  be  produced.  In  a 
rock  garden  alpines  are  appropriate,  plants  which  naturally  make 
their  homes  in  the  scant  pockets  of  earth  between  rocks,  and  if  the 
stones  are  not  large  one  uses  the  smaller  flowering  and  smaller 
foliaged  plants,  reserving  those  with  coarse  leaves  and  large  flow- 
ers for  the  garden  which  can  boast  boulders.  Similarly,  about  a 
pool,  however  formal  its  character,  those  things  should  grow 
which  emphasize  the  feeling  of  water,  and  if  the  pool  is  a  large 
one  the  flowers  and  shrubs  may  be  correspondingly  big,  whereas, 
if  it  is  small,  they  must  not  reduce  its  size  still  more  by  too  great 
contrast. 

The  location  of  a  pool  in  the  design  of  a  garden  is  something 
about  which  it  is  hard  to  generalize.  Lying  out  in  an  open  space 
of  turf  or  gravel,  the  pool  is  apt  to  lose  scale,  to  flow  away  on  all 
sides  and  become  insignificant.  Moreover,  such  a  position  is 
likely  to  preclude  any  planting  about  the  pool — and  half  the  inter- 
est of  water  in  the  garden  is  due  to  the  things  which  grow  near  it. 
Bending  over  it  and  dipping  down  into  it,  they  give  it  warmth  and 
friendliness  and  life.     At  the  same  time  it  is  pleasant  to  be  able  to 

[108] 


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[109] 


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The  Livable  H  o  u  s  e 
walk  all  around  a  pool,  to  see  it  from  different  vantage  points— 
and  to  come  up  to  its  edge  in  places.  The  free  standing  pool  as 
well  as  the  wall  fountain  type  of  pool  should  be  designed  so  as  to 
provide  for  planting  spaces  about  the  edge. 

Of  informal  gardens  there  are  two  sorts:  the  "studied  haphaz- 
ard" garden,  and  the  pure  naturalistic  garden.     Mr.  Henry  V. 
Hubbard  makes  the  distinction  between  the  two  by  saying  that  the 
design  of  the  first  "consists  in  informal  masses  arranged  with  no 
particular  attempt  at  naturalness,  to  make  a  pictorial  composition, 
and  on  the  other  hand,  informal  masses  arranged  to  give  this  pic- 
torial effect,  but  also  to  look  as  though  they  were  organized  by 
some  of  the  laws  of  untrammeled  Nature."     The  first  sort  of  gar- 
den is  illustrated  at  its  best  in  the  picture  and  plan  of  the  Bedford 
Hill  garden.     The  planting  is  so  arranged  as  to  form  a  vista  em- 
phasizing the  delightful  view,  and  the  dark  foliage  of  evergreens 
is  an  effective  background  for  the  flower  masses.     If  all  "infor- 
mal" gardens  were  as  successful  as  this  one,  I  should  be  unquali- 
fiedly converted  to  the  type,  but  I  am  bound  to  say  of  this  kind  of 
informal  garden  in  general  that  it  seems  to  me  to  have  no  place 
in  real  garden  art.     It  is  a  mongrel  kind  of  garden,  an  in-between 
type — something  that  is  neither  formal  nor  naturalistic,  but  just  a 
compromise.     It  usually  means  that  its  owner  has  told  himself 
he  does  not  want  a  "formal"  garden,  but — unwilling  to  give  up  all 
the  nursery  plants  of  man's  making  which  have  no  place  in  a  truly 
naturalistic  garden — he  has  made  this  half-way  garden,  which  is 
neither  one  thing  nor  the  other.     It  seems  to  me  that  it  is  much 
better  art  to  put  these  hybrid  flowers  and  shrubs  into  a  frankly 

[112] 


G 


a 


Plan   of  a   country  place  at   Bedford   Hills,  New   York 


"laid-out"  garden,  where,  in  their  off  seasons,  they  will  not  look 
like  a  ragged  fringe  to  a  shrubbery  border;  and  then,  if  one  wishes 
an  informal  garden,  to  build  one  which  is  truly  naturalistic,  with 
as  much  of  the  spirit  of  woods  and  fields  as  it  is  possible  for  art  to 
capture. 

This  sort  of  garden  should  be  remote,  or  at  least  seem  to  be  re- 
mote, from  houses  and  artificial  things,  and  these  may  be  banished 
by  means  of  tall  planting  or  grading  or  a  combination  of  both. 

[»3] 


T    h 


Livable         House 


[114] 


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The  Livable  House 

Probably  the  only  way  to  get  the  right  sort  of  atmosphere  into 
a  naturalistic  garden  is  to  study  the  country  around  it  and  adopt 
native  characteristics;  that  is,  the  good  characteristics.  The  bad 
ones  should  be  discarded  and  the  good  ones  emphasized,  for  this 
is  the  only  way  to  preserve  the  individuality  of  each  particular 
bit  of  country. 

If  you  are  making  a  naturalistic  pool  down  on  Long  Island,  or 
in  any  portion  of  the  country  where  no  rocky  streams  are  to  be 
found,  resist  the  temptation  to  import  rocks  and  boulders  to  put 
along  the  edge  of  the  pond.  Make  it  true  to  the  type  of  pool 
which  occurs  in  the  neighborhood;  let  the  grass  run  down  to  the 
water's  edge,  broken  at  intervals  by  clumps  of  iris  and  tall  grasses, 
Sagittarius  and  button  bush,  with  cedars  and  black  alders  and 
dogwood  to  form  a  background.  But  if  the  streams  and  pools 
near  your  house  are  rocky,  stones  may  border  the  water's  edge 
with  perfect  propriety.  Be  careful  to  have  the  majority  of  them 
big  stones — or  the  water's  edge  will  look  cluttered  and  restless. 
Ferns  tucked  in  among  the  rocks,  and  wild  grape  vines  spreading 
leafy  layers  over  their  surfaces,  will  help  fit  the  rocks  into  the 
land,  and  an  occasional  tree  or  bush  growing  out  of  a  crevice  may 
be  made  to  have  the  casual  charm  of  a  "happen-so." 

Mr.  Hubbard's  Newport  rock  garden  is  a  delightful  bit  of  truly 
naturalistic  gardening,  and  the  remarkable  thing  about  it  is  that 
the  picture  was  taken  only  three  weeks  after  its  creation. 

Another  unusually  good  piece  of  rock  work  is  that  of  the  Alex- 
ander garden  at  Springfield,  Kentucky.  Mr.  Jensen's  versatility 
in  bringing  out  the  individual  qualities  of  totally  different  parts 

[116] 


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[117] 


The  Livable  House 

of  the  country  is  illustrated  in  this  and  his  handling  of  the  Rubens 
water  garden,  which  shows  the  marshy  planting  of  the  prairies. 

No  vegetation  is  quite  so  markedly  characteristic  of  its  habitat 
as  that  which  grows  near  water.  The  grassy  leaves  of  cat-tails, 
spike  rush  and  iris,  the  luxuriant  marsh  mallow  and  swamp  milk- 
weed, bending  willows,  alders  and  birches,  all  have  a  quality 
which  is  associated  very  definitely  in  our  minds  with  streams  and 
ponds,  or  brooks  and  marshes.  On  the  other  hand,  such  nursery 
shrubs  as  lilac,  weigelia,  golden  bell,  and  deutzia  belong  to  the 
tamed  company  of  the  house  garden — hollyhocks  and  nasturtiums 
are  quite  appropriate  among  these,  but  in  the  naturalistic  garden 
they  introduce  a  gardenesque  note  which  is  altogether  out  of  tune 
with  the  native  chorus. 

The  principle  of  adhering  closely  to  native  forms  and  plant 
materials  is  not  confined  to  water  gardens,  but  applies  as  well  to 


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[118] 


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rock  gardens,  or  woodland  gardens  of  other  sorts.  In  order  to  be 
convincingly  naturalistic  to  charm  us  into  thinking  we  have 
stepped  out  of  the  world  into  a  lovely  hit  ol  Nature's  gardening, 
we  m.ust  follow  her  suggestions  and  use  the  materials  she  pro- 
vides. 


[119] 


Times  and  Seasons 


CHAPTER    FOUR 

Times    a  n  d    S  easo  n  s 

®5-$~?.@  HERE   are  as  many   theories  about   proper  times   for 
-§•  i    !     •§•    planting  as  there  are  nurserymen  and  gardeners.     Al- 
®jo"§"b®    most  everv  one  has  his  own  pet  ideas  about  the  best 
season  for  moving  this  tree  or  that,  based,  of  course, 
upon  individual  experience,  but  almost  every  one  agrees  on  the 
two  main  seasons  of  spring  and  fall  as  the  periods  of  greatest  ac- 
tivity in  transplanting.     The  purpose  in  moving  plants  at  these 
two  times  is  to  catch  them  while  they  are  in  a  more  or  less  dormant 
state — in  the  spring  before  the  sap  has  started  up  from  the  roots, 
and  in  the  fall  after  the  plant  has  ceased  to  grow  for  the  season. 
It  follows  that  it  is  desirable  to  move  in  the  fall  all  those  things 
which  start  into  life  very  early  in  the  spring,  and  at  the  latter 
season  the  more  sluggish  things  which  are  slower  in  responding 
to  "the  urge  of  spring."     In   the   first  class  are  such  shrubs  as 
honeysuckle,  lilac,  and  spiraea,  together  with  dogwood  and  for- 
sythia,  whose  flower  buds  for  the  next  spring  are  all  set  in  the 
autumn.     These  plants  begin  to  grow  very  early  in  the  spring, 
and  if  they  have  established  themselves  in  the  fall  they  will  be 
readv  to  grow  uninterruptedly  when  spring  sunshine  sends  the 
sap  up  from  their  roots. 

Fall  planting  of  deciduous  shrubs  and  trees  may  be  started  as 

[123] 


The  Livable  House 

soon  as  the  leaves  have  fallen  and  continued  until  freezing  weather 
makes  the  ground  unworkable.  The  sooner  the  plants  are  moved 
after  they  have  lost  their  leaves,  however,  the  better,  because  root 
growth  does  not  cease  with  leaf  growth  and  the  plants  should  have 
as  much  opportunity  to  get  established  before  the  ground  hardens 
as  possible. 

Some  shrubs  or  trees  are  moved  with  greater  difficulty  than 
others,  and  it  is  wisest  to  defer  planting  these  until  spring;  birches 
and  lombardy  poplars  are  among  this  company — the  latter  fre- 
quently kill  back  if  they  are  moved  in  the  fall,  to  one-half  of  their 
height  or  more.  Magnolias  moved  late  in  the  fall  are  apt  to  be 
unsuccessful,  as  are  also  most  of  the  oaks,  which  at  best  are  none 
too  easy  to  move.  But  aside  from  a  few  exceptions  such  as  these, 
the  great  body  of  deciduous  shrubs  and  trees  can  be  moved  as  well 
in  the  fall  as  in  the  spring,  and  the  rush  of  the  spring  garden 
work  greatly  lessened  thereby. 

The  autumn  season  for  transplanting  evergreens  begins  sooner 
than  that  for  deciduous  trees,  because  the  former  cease  leaf  growth 
for  the  season  earlier.  From  the  last  of  August  onward  ever- 
greens may  be  safely  moved,  and  although  my  personal  prefer- 
ence is  to  finish  the  evergreen  planting  as  early  in  the  fall  as  pos- 
sible, 1  have  planted  both  conifers  and  broad-leaved  evergreens 
in  December  without  loss.  Care  in  preserving  the  roots,  packing 
the  earth  firmly  about  them,  and  a  protecting  mulch  of  leaves  or 
straw  will  go  far  toward  insuring  the  life  of  these  plants. 

Winter  planting  for  trees  both  deciduous  and  evergreen  is  also 
practiced  successfully.     The  trees  are  prepared  for  this  sort  of 

[124] 


Its  G         a  r         d  c  n 

moving  bv  means  of  a  root  pruning  machine  which  cuts  around 
underneath  the  tree.  The  ball  thus  cut  is  allowed  to  freeze  solid, 
when  the  entire  mass  is  moved  to  its  new  home,  packed  into  place, 
and  guved  with  ropes. 

Roses  mav  be  planted  during  the  autumn  season  as  well  as  in 
spring,  but  thev  should  be  well  protected.  Hilling  the  earth  up 
eight  or  ten  inches  about  the  plants  will  shed  water,  which  in 
winter  is  the  damaging  element  to  roses — and  an  additional  pro- 
tection of  leaves  or  straw  over  the  hills  will  keep  the  plants  from 
alternately  freezing  and  thawing. 

There  is  always  the  danger  that  roses  and  perennials  will  be 
eaten  off  bv  mice  and  other  vermin  which  burrow  beneath  the  pro- 
tective layers  of  straw  and  leaves;  against  these  pests  outdoors, 
traps  and  cats  and  "Paris  green"  are  of  little  avail. 

Most  of  the  hardy  perennials  are  best  planted  in  the  fall — be- 
cause thev  start  to  grow  very  early  in  the  spring,  and  interrupting 
this  growth  bv  the  process  of  transplanting  means  practically  a 
season's  set  back  to  the  plants.  The  work  should  be  begun  in 
August,  however,  and  ended  if  possible  by  the  first  of  November. 
Lilies  and  Dutch  bulbs,  in  which  latter  term  are  included 
tulips,  narcissi,  hyacinths,  crocus,  squills,  chionodoxa,  etc.,  like- 
wise need  to  be  planted  in  the  fall,  for  outdoor  work. 

Spring  planting  of  trees  and  shrubs  may  be  done  as  soon  as  sut- 
ficient  frost  is  gone  to  leave  the  ground  workable;  it  is  very  de- 
sirable although  not  absolutely  necessary  to  accomplish  it  before 
the  leaves  come  out,  because  if  the  planting  is  done  after  the  leaves 
arrive  thev  wither  and  drop,  and  while  the  bush  or  tree  is  form- 

[125I 


The  Livable  House 

ing  new  ones  it  presents  a  discouragingly  dead  appearance.  In 
fact  it  is  just  at  this  stage  of  things  that  most  new  gardeners  lose 
heart — when  they  see  the  thrifty  looking  bushes  and  trees  they 
bought  from  the  nurseryman,  or  had  moved  from  some  flourish- 
ing hedgerow,  looking  like  so  many  dead  sticks.  Probably  no 
other  art  exacts  so  much  in  the  way  of  patience  and  faith  from  its 
followers  for  the  first  few  difficult  years,  as  gardening.  Moving 
stock,  especially  stock  which  has  attained  any  size  at  all,  involves 
a  shock  to  the  plant  from  which  it  requires  time  and  demands  in- 
telligent care  to  recover,  and  everything  which  can  be  done  to 
help  it  establish  itself  is  worth  doing.  Just  sticking  it  in  the 
ground  and  leaving  it  to  its  own  devices  will  sometimes  work  all 
right,  where  the  ground  is  exceptionally  good,  and  moisture  is 
plentiful,  and  the  plant  has  a  good  root  system  with  which  to 
start.  But  it  is  very  seldom  that  any  plant  is  started  under  such 
a  set  of  circumstances,  and  to  "insure  good  results"  it  must  be 
watered,  and  mulched,  and  sprayed  where  insect  pests  are  trou- 
blesome, and  this  done  not  once,  but  recurrently  throughout  the 
first  year  or  two,  after  transplanting,  or  until  it  has  had  time  to 
adapt  itself  to  new  conditions. 

These  conditions  are  made  more  difficult  by  untimely  planting, 
which  entails  a  proportionate  amount  of  extra  care  if  the  plants 
are  to  live.  Moved  after  the  leaves  are  out  when  the  hot  suns  of 
June  have  come  and  the  reviving  rains  of  spring  have  gone,  they 
can  hardly  be  expected  to  bloom  and  flourish.  The  best  they  can 
do  is  to  struggle  along  against  the  odds  of  their  first  year  and  hope 
for  a  second  spring  to  give  them  a  new  lease  on  life. 

[126] 


Its  Lr         a         r         a         e         n 

Nurserymen,  within  the  past  few  years,  have  lengthened  some- 
what the  spring  planting  season  for  a  limited  number  of  plants, 
by  preparing  pot-grown  stock,  which  can  withstand  late  moving 
better  than  field  grown  stock;  vines,  small  shrubs,  roses,  peren- 
nials, and  a  few  evergreens  are  included  in  this  list.  They  are 
valuable  chiefly  as  "fillers-in,"  to  be  used  where  unsightly  holes 
must  be  concealed;  although  their  root  systems  are  more  or  less 
prepared  for  transplanting,  they  are  subject  to  the  same  difficulty 
in  establishing  themselves  against  adverse  atmospheric  conditions, 
such  as  hot  suns  and  little  rain,  as  field  grown  plants. 

Perennials  planted  in  the  spring  will  be  later  in  flowering,  other 
conditions  being  equal,  than  those  which  get  their  start  the  fall 
before;  and  some  early  flowering  ones  such  as  peonies,  trill iums, 
and  mertensia  will  not  flower  at  all  for  a  year  if  they  are  moved 
in  the  spring. 

Seeds  of  annuals  and  bedding  plants  are  sown  in  spring  in  the 
open  ground,  or,  if  one  wishes  to  get  them  into  bloom  earlier,  thev 
may  be  started  in  the  house  during  February  and  transplanted  into 
the  open  as  soon  as  danger  from  frost  is  past. 

Gladiolas,  cannas,  and  dahlias  should  be  planted  outdoors  about 
the  end  of  May,  when  the  earth  has  "warmed  up"  a  bit,  and  frosts 
are  over. 

Bulbs,  which  are  to  be  replaced  after  their  flowering  season  bv 
annuals  or  bedding  plants,  must  be  allowed  to  ripen,  that  is,  left 
until  the  leaves  die  down,  before  they  are  removed.  Such  bulbs, 
of  course,  may  be  saved  and  replanted  the  following  fall. 

Times  and  seasons  for  pruning  vary  with  different  plants  and 

[127] 


The  Livable  House 

with  the  results  one  wishes  to  produce.  All  deciduous  shrubs  and 
trees  should  be  pruned  at  transplanting,  because  the  root  system  is 
reduced  in  the  process  of  moving,  and  the  evaporating  surface  of 
leaves  and  branches  should  be  cut  down  correspondingly.  The 
extent  of  this  pruning  depends  upon  the  amount  of  damage  done 
to  the  root  system,  but  it  is  advisable  to  cut  back,  deciduous  shrubs 
at  least  half,  upon  transplanting,  and  trees  to  about  one-fourth 
of  the  last  year's  growth.  Evergreens,  which  are  usually  moved 
with  a  ball  of  earth  and  which  have  in  consequence  better  pre- 
served root  systems,  require  to  be  pruned  sparingly,  or  not  at  all. 
Cedars  and  retinosporas  may  have  the  greater  part  of  the  last 
season's  growth  removed,  most  broad-leaved  evergreens  will  flour- 
ish without  pruning,  and  if  one  wishes  to  induce  the  pines  to  a 
bushier  habit  of  growth,  the  central  one  of  the  terminal  buds  may 
be  pinched  out.  This  means  that  instead  of  growing  greatly  in 
length,  the  branches  will  develop  their  side  buds  and  become 
thicker. 

Beyond  this  pruning  at  transplanting  time,  shrubs  and  trees 
should  be  allowed  to  develop  normally  with  no  restraint  from  the 
pruning  shears  except  an  occasional  thinning  out  of  dead  wood. 
The  custom  of  annual  pruning  of  flowering  shrubs  when  every 
bush  is  gone  over  and  chopped  back  to  a  uniform  height  or  round- 
ness is  a  very  pernicious  one.  It  is  of  no  benefit  at  all  to  the 
plant,  it  destroys  the  natural  and  beautiful  form  of  the  shrub,  and 
reduces  it  to  an  ugly,  heavy  mass.  When  the  shrubs  once  have  a 
good  start  they  should  be  left  to  their  own  devices,  except  for  the 
removal  of  broken  branches  or  old  worn  out  ones.     Pruning  of 

[.28] 


Its  G  (i  r         d  e  n 

this  sort  should  be  done,  for  early  dowering  shrubs  such  as  lilac, 
mock  orange,  bridal  wreath,  and  golden  bell,  just  after  the  flower- 
ing season  is  over.  These  shrubs  flower  on  wood  which  was  de- 
veloped the  season  before,  and  if  they  are  cut  back  in  the  winter 
or  early  spring,  it  follows  that  the  dowering  branches  may  be 
lost;  whereas  if  thev  are  cut  in  the  earlv  summer,  the  shrub  has 
time  to  develop  new  wood  and  new  flower  buds  before  fall. 

Late  flowering  shrubs,  on  the  other  hand,  such  as  rose  of  sharon, 
hydrangea,  and  some  of  the  spireas,  may  be  pruned  in  the  spring, 
because  their  dowers  are  produced  on  wood  of  the  same  season's 
growth. 

Roses,  although  they  are  early  flowering,  should  be  pruned  in 
the  spring,  as  soon  as  the  frost  is  out  of  the  ground.  With  Hybrid 
Perpetuals,  all  the  old  wood,  that  is  the  wood  which  flowered  last 
vear.  should  be  cut  out  and  from  three  to  six  of  the  strongest 
shoots  produced  last  vear  left.  These  should  be  cut  back  to 
within  eight  or  twelve  inches  of  the  ground.  Hybrid  Teas,  on 
the  other  hand,  should  be  pruned  somewhat  less  severely;  with 
these  the  dead  and  weak  shoots  should  be  cut  out,  and  the  strongest 
shoots  shortened  from  four  to  six  inches.  The  tall  shoots  of  Ram- 
bler or  Climbing  roses  may  be  cut  back  and  the  dead  branches  cut 
out.  If  the  plants  are  thin  and  straggly  they  may  be  greatly  bene- 
fited bv  shearing  back  to  either  three  or  four  inches  of  the  base. 

Almost  all  roses  are  grafted,  and  very  frequently  the  bush  sends 
up  "suckers"  from  below  the  graft,  which  absorb  all  the  nourish- 
ment of  the  plant.  These  shoots  should  be  removed  as  soon  as 
thev  appear,  and  they  may  be  identified  by  the  fact  that  they  have, 

[129] 


The  Livable  House 

as  a  rule,  from  seven  to  nine  leaflets,  whereas  the  budded  stock  has 
usually  but  five. 

Hedges  and  plants  trained  to  a  formal  shape  need  to  be  cut 
several  times  during  the  season  rather  than  just  once  in  spring. 
A  spring  pruning  stimulates  them  into  sending  up  a  lot  of  little 
shoots  which  leave  the  plant  with  a  more  or  less  ragged  appearance 
for  the  summer,  and  these  shoots  need  to  be  cut  back  two  or  three 
times  during  the  season,  depending  upon  the  rapidity  of  growth. 

The  pruning  of  fruit  trees  is  a  science  about  which  it  is  dan- 
gerous to  generalize.  Each  tree,  bush,  and  vine  needs  careful, 
individual  treatment,  because  the  fruit  is  not  borne  the  same  way 
on  all  of  them,  and  for  a  thorough  and  reliable  treatise  on  the  sub- 
ject of  pruning  fruit  trees  there  is  no  better  authority  than  Mr. 
Liberty  Hyde  Bailey's  "Pruning  Book.1'  The  matter  is  here 
taken  up  in  all  its  branches,  and  in  a  sufficiently  popular  way  to 
be  understandable  by  the  layman  who  knows  nothing  about 
botany. 


["130] 


Garden  Architecture 


CHAPTER    F I V E 

G  a  r  i)  e  x     Arch  i  t  i  .  c  T  1 1  r  E 

^'J'-S-^HK   architectural   features  of   the  garden-   its   arbors, 
•§*  *§*   gateways,  fountains,  and  walls — are  not  only  important 

■&!£ $•*•§•  sources  of  interest  in  themselves,  but  the  means  of  com- 
pleting the  garden,  of  rounding  it  out,  and  giving  it  a 
finished  appearance.  A  path  which  leads  one  through  a  gate  is 
ever  so  much  pleasanter  a  way  to  take  than  one  which  lias  no  such 
inviting  barrier,  and  a  vista  which  is  terminated  is  more  delight- 
ful than  one  which  dwindles  off  with  no  object  of  interest  to  hold 
the  eve  at  its  end.  Even  the  flowers  for  which  a  garden  chiefly 
exists  take  on  a  charm  and  elusiveness  they  do  not  possess  of  them- 
selves, when  they  are  glimpsed  through  the  posts  of  the  plainest 
grape  arbor  or  seen  through  the  frame  of  an  arch.  It  is  a  certain 
pictorial  quality  which  good  architecture  contributes  to  the  gar- 
den and  which  flowers  and  shrubs  alone  lack,  as  well  as  an  inter- 
esting human  note  introduced  by  it,  that  make  it  an  important 
consideration  in  planning  a  garden. 

Such  intangible  benefits  are  not  easily  explained  to  the  man  or 
woman  who  has  no  interest  in  architecture  itself,  but  the  main 
photographs  in  this  chapter  will  express  in  more  concrete  form,  1 
hope,  the  value  of  good  architectural  detail  in  the  garden. 

[133] 


The         L    i    v    a     b     I 


H     o     u     s     e 


[134] 


Its  G  <i  r         d  e  n 

The  photographs  of  two  gates  at  Forest  Hills  illustrate  how 
pleasing  an  ordinary  dooryard  walk  ma\  be  made,  by  some  form 
of  gatewa)  to  mark  its  departure  from  the  road,  and  the  gates 
themselves  are  harmonious  details  in  the  general  scheme  of 
English  cottage  architecture. 

The  very  original  gateway  to  the  Pomeroy  place  opens  into  a 
lane  of  lilacs  that  has  almost  the  effect  of  pleaching.  With  an 
entrance  made  as  attractive  as  this  for  introduction,  the  newcomer 
is  prepared  to  be  pleased  with  the  entire  place. 

Both  sides  of  Mrs.  Hill's  garden  doorway  at  Easthampton  are 
equallv  charming.'  The  whole  wall,  in  fact,  has  a  delightfully 
spontaneous  quality  in  its  design — an  unstudied  simplicity  which 
professional  work  is  apt  to  lose  to  technique.  The  use  of  rough 
surfaced  concrete  for  the  wall  is  very  good  and  surprisingly  inter- 
esting, for  as  a  rule  concrete  without  brick  or  tile  or  some  other 
contrasting  material  to  relieve  its  deadness  is  very  unattractive. 
The  breaks  in  line,  together  with  the  rough  surface,  the  thatched 
house  and  the  pergola,  combine  to  give  the  wall  variety  and  inter- 
est. Incidentally  there  is  a  kind  of  fundamental  fitness  about  this 
wall — it  is  apparently,  as  well  as  actually,  a  part  of  the  low  sand 
hills  of  the  coast-land  round  about  "the  Hamptons." 

A  happv  combination  of  materials,  as  well  as  charm  of  design, 
is  illustrated  in  the  wall  and  gateway  of  ■-Huntland."  where  brick 
posts  and  a  molded  brick  cap  furnish  a  contrast  to  the  stucco  sur- 
face. A  similar  office  is  performed  by  the  stone  coigns  and  cap 
of  the  gateway  at  the  Winthrop  place. 

1  See  the  group  of  illustrations  at  the  end  of  this  chapter. 

[135] 


T     h 


L 


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u     u     s     e 


A    GATEWAY    WHICH    MAKES    AN    ORDI 
NARY    PATH    INTERESTING 

Forest  Hills  Gardens,  Forest  Hills,  Long  Island 
Wilson  Eyre,  Architect 

[136] 


/       / 


G 


a 


r  a 


A    PLEASING    GATE    AT    FOREST    HILLS 
Grosvenor  Attcrbury,  Architect 
[137] 


The  L     i     v     a     b     I     e  H 


o     ii     s     e 


c  fcy 


A    GATE    OF    ORIGINAL    DESIGN 

House  of  Mr.   Daniel  E.   Pomeroy,  at  Englewood,  New 
Jersey.     Aymar   Embury   II,   Architect 


Its  Garden 

The  use  of  a  combination  of  materials,  except  in  the  case  of 

stone  which  very  often  contains  enough  variety  in  itself  to  give  an 

interesting  surface,  usually  results  in  a  better  looking  wall  than 
one  built  of  a  single  material.  Especially  is  this  true  of  brick, 
the  use  of  which  can  easily  be  overdone.  Too  much  brick  gives 
the  garden  a  sombre  and  oppressive  appearance  which  is  simple 
to  enliven  bv  a  contrast  in  materials.  Cement,  slate,  marble,  flag- 
stone— all  these  are  valuable  in  this  respect,  and  any  one  of  them 
used  in  conjunction  with  brick  makes  it  twice  as  interesting. 

Sometimes  a  wood  trellis  applied  to  a  wall  is  the  means  of  in- 
creasing its  interest.  This  is  the  case  with  the  high  wall  at  Anda- 
lusia, Pennsvlvania,  where  the  architects  have  devised  a  very 
clever  and  delightful  treatment  of  the  garden  side  of  a  building 
so  high  that  it  would  have  been  painfully  stupid  without  some 
surface  treatment. 

A  quite  different  use  of  wood  with  masonry  is  that  of  the  cedar 
poles  and  stone  piers  on  the  Edgar  place  at  Greenwich;  and  still 
a  third  sort,  a  cross  between  wall  and  fence,  is  that  in  Mrs.  Harry- 
Payne  Whitnev's  garden,  where  chestnut  pailings  between  brick 
piers  mark  the  boundary. 

Some  such  compromise  between  wall  and  fence  is  almost  the 
only  way  in  which  a  wood  fence  can  be  made  to  perform  the 
offices  of  a  high  wall,  because  for  structural  reasons  as  well  as  for 
those  of  good  appearance  fences  do  not  lend  themselves  well  to 
high  treatment. 

For  lower  boundaries  wood  fences  are  both  useful  and  attrac- 
tive, and  the  two  sorts  in  common  use  in  this  country  may  almost 


The  Livable  House 

be  called  indigenous  because  of  their  early  prevalence.  One  is 
the  white  picket  fence  found  around  every  New  England  door- 
yard  garden,  and  the  other  is  the  rail  fence,  which  is  equally  com- 
mon in  cou.ntry  districts.  The  first  kind  still  holds  all  its  charm 
for  the  village  type  of  house,  and  through  some  of  the  Southern 
States  it  finds  a  more  extended  use  where  it  surrounds  the  house 
garden  completely,  and  divides  it  from  the  farm  land  on  which 
cattle  are  allowed  to  graze. 

There  is  no  more  practical  and  interesting  way  of  marking  off 
farm  acres  to-day  than  by  means  of  the  old  rail  fence.  These 
fences,  together  with  the  rough  stone  walls  of  early  farms,  should 
be  regarded  as  traditions  given  us  by  our  pioneer  forefathers, 
worth  continuing.  On  the  prairies  of  the  Middle  West,  hedges 
of  buckthorn  and  osage  orange  naturally  supplant  to  a  great  ex- 
tent the  customary  boundaries  of  stony  New  England — the  use  of 
all  these  natural  materials  is  much  to  be  commended,  and  the 
unpicturesque  and  no  more  practical  fencing  of  concrete  posts 
with  wire  between  discouraged. 

Fences  of  wrought  iron,  and  more  especially  gates  of  iron,  may 
be  very  beautiful  and  interesting.  They  are  likely  to  be  formal 
in  character,  however,  and  their  use  in  country  work  is  limited 
by  this  factor  as  well  as  by  that  of  their  expense. 

Gateways,  such  as  one  frequently  sees  at  the  entrance  to  a  place, 
which  are  free  standing,  and  not  part  of  any  wall,  should  be  tied 
into  the  landscape  by  heavy  planting.  Thev  have  very  often  a 
lost,  unconnected  air  which  is  only  to  be  overcome  by  weighting 
down,  so  to  speak,  their  extremities  with  strong  planting.     This  is 

[140] 


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[141] 


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L     i     v     able 


House 


SIMPLE  ROSE  ARCHES  OF  VERY 
GOOD  DESIGN 

Garden   of  Miss  Emily   Slade   at   Windsor, 
Vermont.     Charles   A.    Plan,   Architect 


A  GATEWAY  AND  ARBOR  AT 
HAMILTON  FARM 

Estate    of    James    Cox    Brady,    Gladstone, 
New  Jersey.     Ruth  Dean,  Architect 


true  of  any  free-standing  wall  or  fence.  If  it  does  not  grow  out 
of  a  building  or  end  against  one,  its  terminations  must  be  con- 
cealed bv  planting.  Such  a  piece  of  wall  is  well  taken  care  of  on 
the  Schiff  place,  where  evergreens  and  sturdy  shrubs  make  it  part 
of  its  surroundings. 

The  same  criticism  of  loose  ends  is  to  be  made  of  a  great  many 
arbors  and  pergolas.  An  arbor  should  begin  at  some  expected 
and  natural  place  and  end  in  the  same  way:  should  lead  from  one 
spot  to  another,  and  not  be  just  set  down  in  the  midst  of  things. 
An  interesting  arbor  is  that  on  the  grounds  of  Mr.  Jonathan  God- 
frev  where  the  arbor  is  in  effect  part  of  a  wall.     The  beams  run 

[142] 


/       / 


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11 


A    WALL    PERGOLA    WITH    VA  LI   ABLE 
P  L  A  N  TING    S  P  A  C  E    AT    I  T  S    B  A  S  E 

Garden  of  Mr.  Jonathan  Godfrey,  at  Bridgeport.  Connecticut 

Marian   C.   Coffin.  Landscape  Architect; 

Y.  Burrall  Hoffman,  Architect 


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from  a  row  of  columns  to  piers  which  are  extensions  of  the  wall, 
and  which  leave  pleasing  window-like  openings  in  the  upper  part 
of  the  wall.  One  of  the  unexpected  sources  of  success  in  this  per- 
gola is  the  planting  space  at  the  foot  of  the  wall;  with  no  room 
left  in  which  to  plant  a  friendly  vine  the  arbor  would  be  without 
half  its  charm. 

Another  good  combination  of  wall  and  pergola  is  the  pergola 
gate  in  the  rose  garden  on  the  Walton  estate  at  St.  Davids.  Ma- 
terials, as  well  as  good  design,  are  responsible  for  much  of  its 
interest;  the  round  columns  of  stone  roughly  plastered  have  a 
pleasant,  careless  charm  which  is  increased  by  the  use  of  broken 
flag  walks. 

Of  all  the  means  whereby  walls  may  be  made  interesting,  prob- 
ably the  most  effective  is  the 
wall  fountain.  There  is  some- 
thing very  enticing  about  the 
smallest  drip  of  water  with 
green  shinv  leaves  around  it, 
and  the  simplest  device  in  the 
way  of  a  dolphin's  head  that 
spurts  its  little  stream  into  a 
shell,  catches  and  holds  our 
interest  above  any  other  fea- 
ture in  the  garden. 

A  plain  wall  fountain  com- 
bined with  a  pool  is  that  on  the 
Rogers' place  at  Tuxedo.    The 


A  FAUN 
J.  C.  Kraus,  Stoneworkcr 


[14+1 


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A    D  ELIGHTFU  L    ()  L  D    G  A  RDHX    HOIS  E 

Designed  by  Samuel   Maclntyre  in   IJQQ  on  the  Osborn 
Estate  at  Peabody,  Massachusetts 

[145] 


The  Livable  House 

pool  lies  at  the  foot  of  a  high  terrace  wall,  and  is  fed  through  a 
mask  by  a  stream.  Here  again  a  strictly  architectural  feature  of 
the  garden  owes  much  of  its  interest,  its  intimate  personal  quality 
to  the  planting  about  it.  A  more  elaborate  wall  fountain  is  that 
at  "Brookside,"  of  which  Mr.  Rondoni  is  the  sculptor.  It  is  de- 
lightful in  conception  and  the  figures  of  the  two  fauns  and  the 
mask  are  very  amusing  indeed. 

Garden  houses,  like  walls,  should  conform  to  the  style  of  archi- 
tecture of  the  main  house,  for  the  garden  and  whatever  pertains 
to  it  ought  to  be  part  of  an  homogeneous  whole;  one  should 
be  able  to  pass  easily  from  house  to  garden  and  from  garden  to 
house1  feeling  that  each  belongs  to  the  other;  and  one  of  the  surest 
ways  of  accomplishing  this  spirit  of  coherence  is  uniformity  of 
design  and  correlation  of  material  in  all  the  architectural  features 
of  the  garden.  Garden  architecture,  to  be  sure,  need  not  be  so 
dignified  as  that  of  the  house ;  it  admits  of  more  freedom  and  play- 
fulness in  its  treatment  than  does  the  more  important  architecture 
of  the  house,  but  the  same  general  style  should  be  adhered  to 
throughout. 

The  practice  of  this  principle  automatically  rules  out  the  Japa- 
nese garden  transplanted  to  our  Western  surroundings;  like  most 
exotics,  its  fault  is  that  it  fails  to  fit  in  our  civilization  and  tradi- 
tions of  art,  and  it  must  always  occupy  the  position  of  a  curiosity. 
An  Eastern  garden  is  full  of  symbolism  which  is  lost  to  the  un- 
trained Western  mind,  and  it  is  no  more  feasible  to  graft  this  art 
on  our  traditions  of  garden  design  than  it  is  to  introduce  Japanese 
manners,  costumes,  and  religion. 

[146] 


/ 


G 


a 


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n 


The  anomaly  of  an  Italian  garden  in  conjunction  with  a  so 

called  colonial  house — or  a  garden  distinctively  French  in  char- 
acter, with  a  house  of  easy  informal  English  design  is  less 
flagrant,  though  equally  to  he  avoided.  The  best  features  of  al- 
most any  stvle  otter  enough  good  things  from  which  to  choose, 
so  that  one  need  not  be  driven  to  the  resources  of  another  style  tor 
variety. 

Of  garden  furniture  there  is  very  little  of  stock  design  which  is 
good.      Stone  workers  have  done  a  great  deal  better  for  us  than 


A  USUAL  FIGURE  WHICH  IS 
VERV   PLEASING 

E.  I.ucche-i,  Storweorker 


A   FINE   REPRODUCTION   OF 

a  NEO-GRCECQUE 

PHILOSOPHER 

J.  C.  Kraus,  Stoneuorier 


H7] 


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wood  craftsmen ;  and  the  cast  stone  benches  and 
tables  which  may  be  obtained  offer  good  adapta- 
tions of  classic  designs.  But  there  is  little  wood 
garden  furniture,  except  that  done  to  special  de- 
sign, which  is  even  passable. 

Good  garden  figures  are  almost  as  scarce  as 
good  wooden  furniture;  but  occasionally  one 
finds  something  that  it  not  the  stereotyped  "boy 
with  fish,"  or  Hebe,  or  Diana. 
Cast  iron  reindeer  gave  us  a 
great  set-back  in  our  appreci- 
ation of  garden  ornaments; 
for  many  people,  still  under 
the  influence  of  the  very 
TH      proper    reaction    against    tins 

^|        ^^U  garden   "adornment," 

refuse  to  have  any  "statuary" 
at  all  about  their  grounds. 
This  is  unfortunate,  because 
there   is   no   doubt   about  the 

fact  that  a   few  figures  carefullv  chosen  con- 
tribute a  lot  of  interest  and  life  to  the  garden. 

It  is  pleasant  to  come  on  a  faun  laughing  out 

of  the  leaves  at  one,  or  the  wise  old  smile  of  a 

philosopher,  or  the  pagan  grin  of  a  grotesque. 

And   amusing  in  much  the  same  way  are  the 

lead  figures  used  so  often  in  English  gardens; 

[148] 


A  GOOD  TERMI- 
NAL FIGURE 
FOR  PATH 


ANOTHER.    TER- 
MINAL FIGURE 
FOR  PATH 


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[149] 


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shepherds  and  shepherdesses,  amorini  and 
grotesques.  Lead  is  a  very  agreeable  ma- 
terial for  garden  figures,  and  it  is  regret- 
table that  no  one  is  manufacturing  them  in 
this  country  to-day.  A  few  dealers  import 
lead  work  from  England,  and  now  and  then 
,  ,    an  old  figure  strays  into  the  country,  but  for 

A  FRUIT  BASKET  FOR  A  6 

garden  gate  post      the  most  part  tne  use  0f  t h i s  material  for 

J.   C.  Kraus,  Stoneworker 

garden  work  is  very  limited. 

Good  sun-dials  of  the  "made  in  America"  kind  are  also  few  and 
far  between.  For  the  most  part  our  stock  sun-dials  consist  of 
Doric  columns  of  very  doubtful  proportions,  or  of  a  single  heavy 
baluster  supporting  a  plaque  on  which  the  dial  face  rests.  Very 
little  ingenuity  and  good  taste  seems  to  have  been  exercised  in 
their  designs,  and — I  admit  it  reluctantly — we  have  almost  no 
dials  to  compare  in  interest  with  hundreds  to  be  found  in  England. 

I  am  not  going  to  excuse  the  scarcity  of  good  design  in  garden 
furniture  and  accessories  on  the  basis  of  the  youth  of  this  country, 
or  its  hustling  interest  in  business,  or  its  lack  of  a  leisure  class. 
These  are  the  customary  and  time-worn  excuses  for  almost  every 
artistic  defect  we  possess.  We  have  the  best  architects  in  the 
world  to-day,  and  we  have  able  manufacturers  and  good  designers 
of  furniture  for  interiors.  Among  the  three  we  ought  to  produce 
garden  furniture  which  is  as  good  in  design  as  that  of  any  other 
country,  and  which  will  be  a  real  factor  in  making  the  gardens 
livable. 


[150] 


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[151] 


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[152] 


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[157] 


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A    W  ALL    OF    REFINED    DESIGN 

Garden  of  Mrs.   E.   S.  Clark,   Pomfret,   Connecticut 
Charles   A.    Piatt,   Architect 

[158] 


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\    GATE    POST    OF    SI  M  P  I.  E    D  I  GN  1  1"  1  E  I) 

D  E  S  I  G  N 

Estate  of  Mr.  Willard  Straight,  at  Westbury,  Long  Island 
A     F.   Brinckerhoff,   Landscape  Architect 

[15 


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A    CLEVER    TRELLIS    TREATMENT 
OF    A    HIGH    WALL 

///   the  garden   of  Mr.   Charles   Biddle,  at  Andalusia, 
Pennsylvania.      Mellor   and   Meigs,  Architects 

[160] 


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A  N  UNUSUALLY  GOOD  B  I  I 
"RUSTIC  WORK" 


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Garden  of  Mrs.   }.  Clifton  Edgar,  at  Greenwich,   Connecticut 

Marian   C.   Coffin.  Landscape  Architect 

[16.] 


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A    FENCE    OF    CHESTNUT    PALINGS 
BETWEEN    BRICK    PIERS 

Garden  of  Mrs.   Harrv  Pavne  Whitney,  Westbury,  Long 
Island.     Delano  and  Aldrich,  Architects 

[162] 


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THE    W  H I T  E    PICKET    FENCE    OF    A 
DOOR-YARD    GARDEN 

House  of  Mrs.  Harrison  Sanford,  at  Litchfield,   Connecticut 
Restored  by  Mr.  Aymar  Emburv   II,  Architect 

[163] 


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[166] 


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GAZEBO  OF  THE  ROY  ALL  HOIS  E 

At  Medford.  Massachusetts 

[167] 


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AN    AMUSING    W  A  L  L    F  O  U  N  TAIN 

.//  "Brookside,"  Estate  of  Mr.  William   Hall  Walker,  Great 

Barrington,  Massachusetts.      Ferrucio  Vitale, 

Landscape  Architect 

[168] 


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A    W  A  LL    FO  U  X  T  A  IX    COMBI  X  E  D 
W  I  T  H    A    P  O  O  L 

Garden   of  Mr.    H.    H.   Rogers,  at  Tuxedo.   New    York 
Walker  and  Gillette,  Architects 

[169] 


Copyright,   ioiit  by  Frank  Cousins 

A    G^ADDE,N    ENTRANCE    FOR    WHOSE 
CHARM    AGE    IS    RESPONSIBLE 

House  at  80  Federal  Street,  Salem,  Massachusetts 
Samuel   Mclntyre,  Architect,   1782 

[170] 


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171 


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A    WROUGHT    IRON    LANTERN 
AND    BRACKET 

At  Forest  Hills   Gardens,   Forest   Hills,  Loin/  Island 
Grosvenor  Atterbury,  Designer 

[172] 


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\Y  ()    B  K  N  C  H  E  S    OF    1  X  T  E  R  E  STING 
DES1  GN    B  A  C  K  E  I)    IP    BY 
T R  E LLI S 

Ralph  Adams  Cram.  Architect 

[■73] 


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Livable         H     o     u     s 


A    REPRODUCTION    OF    AN    OLD 
RENAISSANCE    URN 

V 

At  Hamilton  Farm,  Gladstone,  New  Jersey.     Ruth   Dean, 
Landscape  Architect;  J.  C.   Kraus,  Stoneivorker 

"[i74] 


